Earlier this year, Richard contacted me and asked me to come here and do some major changes and upgrades to the home because Patria, who is now past eighty years of age will be moving to a home in southern California where Richard and his wife Kim now live. This will happen so Richard can help her with her needs as she gets older. The changes and upgrades that I have been enlisted to do are designed to allow the home to sell quicker once on the market.

The first thing that I will be doing is to remove the pavers from the front yard, which has been used as additional parking, and this change in the front yard will put it back to the way it was when we originally built the home, grass and flower beds. This operation will start with screening dirt, removing the rocks and re-spreading the dirt down for the laying of sod in the front yard.

After examining the Oak Harbor house as to the extent of the work, I call Richard to confirm what he wants me to do. He tells me that the front yard, which is now a parking spot would sell better if the grass is restored to the way it was when he moved his mother into the house twenty years ago.

He also tells me that the pavers will have to be removed and taken to the dump, to which I reply, I have asked Joann and she will help me remove them, load them into her truck and then move them to her home. He says that he is good with that.

The paver removal was the easy part of this job because in order to convert the front yard into a lawn again, all the gravel that was dumped here will have to be removed. A contractor would normally bring in a back hoe, dig out everything, including all the plants, then dump a load of top soil, put in new plants and sod and then after a couple of weeks, charge a figure approaching five figures.

Since I do not have access to heavy equipment, I will have to do the same work with a shovel, rake and wheel barrel.

Over the next week, I begin digging up the front yard, using a small dirt screen atop the wheel barrel to remove the rocks and then put the dirt back down for the new green grass lawn, a long slow process with this type of dirt screen.

After removing all of the pavers, the sifting of the gravel comes next. Joann lets me use her wheel barrel top dirt sifter and even thought it get the job done, right away I see that doing the sifting atop a wheel barrel is slow work.

We put the red wheel barrel next to the sifter so that the gravel can be dumped into it and provide easy removal. While Joann sifts the dirt, I dig up the yard and pile the dirt near to the sifter.

When the sifting process begins to create a large pile of the sifted dirt, I install a border between the flower beds and the area to be sodded. Next, I begin to spread the the dirt across the yard leveling the dirt up to the border.

This provides more room for additional sifted dirt to be piled up.

There are several rose bushes scattered throughout the front yard. I decide to transplant these bushes to just in front of the white fence, but for each, I dig a deep hole, fill with water, add screened dirt to make a mud liquid and then plant the rose bush. Too, because it is not the optimum season for transplanting, I keep the rose bushes well watered each day after transplanting.

After a week of screening with the wheel barrel top dirt sifter, I decide to build one like what I used during the work on my home when I lived here on Oak Harbor, a time that I called my grass mowing job.

Once the new dirt screener is built, the screening work progresses much more rapidly. I am able to screen a large pile of dirt in a matter of hours instead of days, the previous work rate.

The day begins at seven when I go for coffee and then with coffee in hand, I drive north on SR 20, stop at Joann′s home and together Joann and I drive to Mount Vernon, Washington, which is on the mainland to purchase a pallet of sod. The entire trip takes less than two hours and I am back at the Oak Harbor House, unload the sod onto the driveway, return north to exchange the truck for the jammer and then get into the jammer and head back to the Oak Harbor House.

It is about ten-thirty this morning when I arrive back at the Oak Harbor House and begin laying sod. It is not a hard operation, actually all the hard work is done, that of digging the dirt up, sifting the rock, trash and weeds out of the dirt, and then spreading the sifted dirt down as a base for the sod.

The sod installation is complete in just less than three hours and now it will have to be watered each day for an entire week. Most likely, the rain that is forecasted will help with the watering.

I then resume working on sifting the rocks from the dirt as the next step is to restore the flower beds to make them presentable.

Awake to a wet morning so I choose not to go to work at the Oak Harbor house today because of the rain but would not have worked anyway because of having so much pain during last night, the worst pain ever. Instead, I spend the day in the jammer parked outside of the w-mart, drink a cup of hot, have a cup of Daystart and pound keys, all the while trying to endure the pain that lingers through the day. Then, in the very late afternoon, I check online for the status of the Deception Pass state park campground and find it to be now open. Right then, I decide to go there today for a hot shower, so I pack out, drive north on SH 20.

Then, for the next several days, because of both the rain and the pain, I choose to not work at Oak Harbor House but rest and recuperate from the ravages of what ever is causing me to experience this malady. Then, after five days of rest, I wake up on Monday morning without any pain, so I choose to go to the Oak Harbor House but only for a half day of work.

I work on the flower beds and the gravel walk way around the side of the house.

I drive to Joann′s home to load her pressure washer, then drive to the Oak Harbor House and begin washing the concrete.

After more than seven hours of work, I clean up, pack out and head back to the w-mart to park and pound keys until it gets dark. At dusk, I drive to the outback of the d-mart parking, set up for the evening and then get into the horizontal.

After two days of washing concrete, what I have left is to wash the garage, house and front porch.

Awake, dress, drive to the w-mart for coffee, com and computer for another day in the rainshadow. I then leave to go for breakfast at the Island Cafe after which, I go to the Oak Harbor House to finish the pressure washing by cleaning the front porch and deck.

After several hours there, I then drive north on SH 20 to return the pressure washer to Joann and after putting it back into the shed, we sit on her porch and talk for a short time. Leaving Joann's home, I drive further north on SR 20, cross the bridge and stop at Bowman Bay to get into the hot water for a long soak.

Now, what is left? I still need to haul away all of the junk and debris that I have been piling up in several locations after which, I still have to finish working on the flower beds.

The fist step in the removal of the junk is to gather it all together in one location and since I have been putting the rose bush trimmings on the sidewalk because that would be the best place for loading it onto a truck, so, that is where I will move all of the junk to. I then called a junk removal service and they were going to stop by and give me a price for the removal.

While waiting for the junk truck to arrive, I work on the flower bed lining the north side of the property. I take many of the potted flowers and put them in the ground and then add some of the screened dirt to the soil.

When the junk truck arrived, they quote a price, which is high but within the parameters of what the owner told me would be alright, so, I said, Take it Away!

I continue with the north side flower bed until I have completed most of it, then go back to the front flower bed to work on it.

With all the junk gone, I am able to concentrate on finishing the front flower bed as well as to finalize the front yard by digging in the previously potted flowers into the several flower beds around the perimeter and north side of the house.

From the front bed, I dig out the gravel and moving the gravel to the trench along the north side of the property, then I add four wheel barrel loads of screened dirt into the front flower bed and finally begin planting the flowers.