So today was a day of penance.\u00a0 Sins of omission had to be paid for with sins of commission.\u00a0 The pool fence has a gate with a closing\/locking mechanism that requires the two posts and the door to be in rather finicky alignment to work properly.\u00a0 Well, it\u2019s been getting more and more out of whack for the last couple of years but I\u2019ve been putting it off because \u2026 well because I\u2019m a very lazy man.<\/p>\n
But yesterday the pool guys opened up the pool so I figured I couldn\u2019t stall any longer.\u00a0 I had all my tools (drill, 200-foot extension cord, screwdrivers, pliers, wrench, two different socket sets and drivers, a small sledge hammer, wheel barrow, shovel, ear protection, eye protection, hacksaw) and the kits I was using to shore up the two posts and the hardware I needed to repair the gate.\u00a0 The wheelbarrow and shovel were to fill a hole next to one of the posts.\u00a0 I had dug it and filled it with large stones (~fifty pounds each) to hold the post in place but this wasn\u2019t doing the trick.\u00a0 So, I removed the stones and replaced it with dirt and compacted it with the sledge hammer.\u00a0 But unfortunately, I couldn\u2019t get at this post because of a large concrete planter that Camera Girl had filled with plants right on top of the post so I had to wrestle it out of the way.\u00a0 Who knew concrete and dirt were heavy?<\/p>\n
Finally, I could get to work on the posts.\u00a0 But when I moved the planter, I must have covered over a hornet\u2019s nest.\u00a0 Because now they were looking for their nest and couldn\u2019t find it.\u00a0 So, they came looking for me!\u00a0 So, I\u2019m banging the reinforcing post into the ground and bolting it together and drilling holes into the post while dodging and swatting hornets.\u00a0 So, I\u2019m swearing and moving erratically to escape the bugs and Camera Girl sees me as she\u2019s walking in the yard.\u00a0 And she comes over to see what\u2019s wrong.\u00a0 But she blows up when she gets any kind of bug bite so I\u2019m yelling at her to stay back.\u00a0 So, she thinks I must be going crazy but after additional arm waving and hollering she retreats.<\/p>\n
Finally, I finish with the first post and quickly manhandle the planter back in place and the hornets find their home.\u00a0 So I go looking for Camera Girl to explain what was going on.\u00a0 She yeah-yeahs me and tells me to get back to work.\u00a0 The rest of the job goes fairly well.\u00a0 Of course, I make approximately a thousand trips back and forth to my tool room in the garage because nothing fits and all the hardware is wrong.\u00a0 But eventually the posts are square, the gate is straight and the lock works (more or less).\u00a0 I put away all of the various tools and head to the pool to empty the skimmer for the first time.\u00a0 But I can tell something\u2019s wrong with the pump.\u00a0 It sounds wrong.\u00a0 I turn off the power and I see smoke coming from a union near a valve that the pool guys replaced yesterday.\u00a0 The union cracked and the pump has been running without water for some unknown amount of time today.\u00a0 I sigh.\u00a0 Yep.\u00a0 One step forward.\u00a0 Two steps back.<\/p>\n
As Scarlett O\u2019Hara wisely observed, \u201cTomorrow is another day.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So today was a day of penance.\u00a0 Sins of omission had to be paid for with sins of commission.\u00a0 The pool fence has a gate<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3366,818,1263],"tags":[300,3341,4491],"class_list":["post-33457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-life-in-dunwich","category-ocf","category-stuff-that-personally-interests-me-miscellaneous","tag-camera-girl","tag-dunwich","tag-the-compound"],"yoast_head":"\n