News from February 2008

Chinese Name

Wong-Ming-Fay

This is an imprint of my Chinese name (Wong Ming Fay (sp?)) made by my marble stamp. Grandma was interested in seeing it, so up it goes.

Driveway, Sidewalk, and Backyard Torn Up

Driveway Ditch

Sunday afternoon, I returned from having dim sum with Liz to find a work crew slicing and dicing the parking strip and driveway in front of my house with a bobcat. The plan is to remove the weed-infested strip of cement between the sidewalk and the curb and plant something (flowers?) there instead. The steep drop from the driveway to the street will be smoothed out somewhat, the drain fixed up, and various small chunks of broken sidewalk repaired. The foreman drove by and said that they would pour the new concrete as close to tomorrow as they can get, weather permitting.

Today, some gardeners came by to tear out the huge 40'x8'x3' ivy "hedge" behind my house. In the past, somebody planted that stuff next to the backyard fence; since then, the ivy overwhelmed the fence and it finally collapsed in the last storm. Since I wasn't looking forward to removing that much plant material myself, I bit the bullet and found "Paradise Restored" to do the job for me. Now that it's gone, the lady whose yard abuts mine came out and said "Oh thank you for getting rid of all that horrible ivy! I could never keep up with it and gave up years ago..." Hopefully that stuff will stay out, though I suspect it won't. There are pictures too.

Wisdom Teeth Removed

Wisdom teeth removed. Enough said.

Backyard Renovations

While I was down for wisdom teeth removal, I decided that it might be a good time to take down the greenhouse--except for anything mouth related, I felt fine. During the long block of sunny February days, I went out with my trusty drill, jigsaw, and a few other tools, and bisected the greenhouse. It was a lot of work to cut the racks inside the greenhouse, unbolt the joined sections, move the old frame out and the door back, then dismantle the rest of it, but in the end I have much more space in the back yard and some spare greenhouse parts. The racks I gave to Ann, though the rest is still cluttering up the back.