The rest of the summer was marked by construction projects. First was the bathroom remodel my parents were undertaking upstairs. This led to the discovery of the sewer line break in the basement--which I was witness too up close and personal. The remodeling was fun--Mom and I got to shop for new decor, linens and paint. The sewer fix was not fun. It led to a full plumbing crew coming in to replace the entire sewer line in the house and then hook up the house to the city sewer. Do you know how thick your house's foundation is? And do you know there is really dirt underneath all that...full of pipes and such. I am no idiot, but, seeing all the dust, dirt and concrete chunks coming out of what used to be my bathroom was amazing. Who knew?! About this time an inch thick dusting was covering EVERYTHING I brought with me...and Rod was due later that day for his first visit from Florida. Somehow my parents managed to vacuum up all the mess and get the basement into shape in the three hours it took me to get from Milwaukee's airport and back. How they did it, I still don't know!!!
Which leads us to the outside projects. Remember the road work last summer? It looks great now--new pavers greeted me as I made the turn onto Roosevelt Road this year. But, the crews were still working on the curbside improvements. This led to at least three separate visits from the re-seeding crews with their rakes smoothing out the dirt clods, sprinkling the seed and bravely leaving all these little garden plots to the residents to water. Then my 73 year old father, the one with the bad back, would move out the soaker hose to try to get the grass to grow. And remember how hot it was this summer??? Approximately three days to three weeks later the road crew was back screwing up the new "grass" or weeds as we liked to call them. Then the re-seed crew would come out again, followed once more by my Dad with the soaker hoses. After the third time, we gave up. Which was just as well, because by then we had a two foot hill of dirt going from the house to the street where the new sewer line was now connected to the city's line. It looked like such a great landscape choice next to the velvet weed reaching one foot high out at the curb.
Near the end of the summer, the village government sent out a letter commiserating with the residents about the heat, mildly reprimanding those who had failed to water their curbside plots adequately and informing everyone they would send out the reseeding crews once again when it got cooler to see if the grass seed would take before the cold weather set in. And, no the crew didn't mix up and seed with velvet weed seeds, those were just dormant in the ground...yada, yada, yada. This was met with relief at our house because now we had started thinking about getting a new roof put on. Luckily my #1 nephew, Matt, is a card carrying roofer and he was able to do everything perfectly to suit Grandpa's and the building inspector's exacting standards. I did not participate in the roofing--I was too busy making soap for my big show Labor Day weekend.
Just a week or so ago my parents finally had a landscape crew in to finish the final grading and reseeding of the front lawn. Turns out that is another thing I learned this summer....you have to wait for the soil to settle when you dig it up. Otherwise, it sinks in and leaves a canal-like divot in your lawn. Isn't it amazing, the things you learn every day?!? And yes, although it cooled off, the grass is growing just fine. But I have a feeling the front curb is still full of velvet weeds...
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