As part of my insane one-day blitz of completing as many projects I could fit, I tackled the new planting bed at our front entrance. I managed to get into it early, before the peak heat of the 4th hottest day ever in Phoenix . It was still a miserably hot experience.
We planted the flowers a couple weeks ago , so today was a border and mulch install day. We wanted a free form, curved bed, to contrast the sharp edges of the house and walkway. I used a string line to lay out a few shapes, until I found one that Sweetie liked. I measured the string to get an accurate length to put on the shopping list.
A clever string quote goes here.
We looked at our options and decided on something a little different. EcoBorder ("Your best landscape Edge for a greener planet") is a flexible, molded edging. It comes in 4' sections with all needed hardware and is available in a variety of colors. Home Depot had red at one store, red at another, but they carry black, gray, and green on their website. We chose dark brown.
I find myself choosing "green" products more and more often when given the choice. This edging is made from crumb rubber, recycled tires. I'd certainly rather tires beautify our yard rather than spend a millennium in a landfill.
I started at the house, where I wanted the edging to butt up at an angle. It was extremely easy to cut with a hack saw. (I know, I know, a hacksaw?!!! Right, I'll break out a power tool later, I promise)
"Wear gloves" it says, vs steel-belted radial bits perhaps?
The sections coupling together with hard plastic pins. They have scalloped ridges, that should help them from backing out. The gap between sections mirrors molded groves equally spaced throughout the piece. I found it best to coupling a few pieces together before making exact, final placement.
The instructions recommend driving stakes in the ends first. They also state the task requires a "household hammer". Huh? For a tool junkie, that's just gibberish! There are a lot of hammers in my household; what am I supposed to use?, ball-peen? sledge, framer's, electrician's, what?!!!.
Moving on, completely free-wheeling without concise, hammer guidance from the manufacturer, I selected Sweetness from my arsenal. Sweetness is my favorite beating stick, a Klein 808-20 Heavy-Duty Straight-Claw Hammer, a common favored sidearm of electricians, ohhhhhh yeahhhhh...
Once I had the sections roughly in place, I started pounding in stakes like Van Helsing.
Isn't Sweetness radiant in the sun?
I merrily staked three sections down, moving along at a rapid pace. This is hard-packed desert soil, not easy to penetrate, even with a shovel. I was happy with my progress,..then, I ran into trouble. I started hitting rocks. The plastic stakes did pretty good, but in the rough, rocky terrain, I snapped the button head off a couple and broke two of them clean in half. One breaking made Sweetness bounce into my knuckle. I may have let an expletive fly on that last one. Sorry neighbors.
Looking for another solution, I soaked the ground down, no help. I didn't want to drive an old drill bit into the earth, because I knew there was a 3/4" electrical conduit and who knows what else buried below. Burrowing into a subterranean electrical line is what professional electricians refer to as, "not a good idea". Finally, I Mac Gyvered it by chucking a long bit extension into my drill backwards (Yayyyy! Power tool!). This put a blunt tip on the end. I set the drill on hammer-mode and slowly let it loose on the hard packed soil, while letting the hose dribble over the hole.
Drill baby drill!!!
It worked. I had to move the routing a couple times when I hit rocks too big to drill past, but it was close enough, I was able to pound the final stakes. I suspect that a nice, soft grass lawn would allow these stakes to go in easily, compared to the Martian landscape of our front lawn.
One last display of the finest hacksaws-man-ship I could muster, and the border was complete!
The most important, and most used tool of the day is on the left: Gatorade
On to mulching, I found this Vigoro Rubber Mulch at Home Depot. Again, they have red and dark brown, but you can order many more colors on the their website. The dark, chocolaty brown matched the new border very well. I decided against tasting it, to review true chocolaty-ness for you. It was my loss perhaps, but the possibility of left over steel-belted-radial on my tongue, gave me pause.
I'd like to see someone drop this pallet off a building. Would it bounce?
Again, this is from recycled tires. But this time, it's shredded and colored, not crumbles, formed in shape. A close examination will actually show the occasional tire tread pattern. I chose it again for the "green" / recycled aspect, but I also liked the fact that there I wouldn't be laying out a buffet of of munchable wood right where I had found subterranean wood-eating insects feasting on our front porch overhang. The manufacturer states about this rubber mulch:
Does not attract insects
Saves time and money by eliminating annual mulching
Prevents weeds
12 year color guarantee
Sold!!!!!!
Five bags installed, I'm on my way to Home Depot, again.
It was easy to work with, but odd. Dropping a handful on the sidewalk resulted in bouncing, ricocheting rubber. Weird, weird behavior for yard-work material.
What do you want for nothing? A rubber biscuit?!!
- Elwood Blues, Blues Brother
It was crazy hot by the time I finished. I think it turned out looking pretty good though. I feel good about using the recycled material, especially since its low maintenance.
Keeping in theme, I'm going to let Elwood take it from here, as only he can. You ever heard of a ricochet biscuit?
Bow bow bow!
sucked up a rock and I didn't catch it for a couple weeks. Yoda would have been quite comfortable, spending his years of exile in our backyard.
, 
.
, by "Weird Al" Yankovic -Album: 
and some 220 grit sandpaper to get all the swelling knocked down and the panel smooth again.
. I taped the whole panel off with my favorite painting buddy, 
, and painted it a fresh, glossy white. I think I sealed it up pretty good.
have a built in screw cutter. I threaded the 8/32 screw into the hole, and gave them a quick squeeze, "SNAP!" = shorter. Unscrew it from the strippers and put the whole thing back together. Back in business!
that keeps them on at night and off during the day. We've kept them on all night ever since someone tried to help themselves to my last truck hammering a massive screwdriver into my passenger door lock. Bastards.
and pushed them back in the wall. A few were clipped through the edge of a stud and were at odd angles. I didn't' want to pound them back into the house and cause mystery damage inside the wall, so I broke out the 
, loaded a cut-off wheel, and let some sparks fly.
to transfer the end location of the cut. The critical step here was to utilize a neon pink pencil. Otherwise, obviously, the whole project would have failed. Take it from me, all serious craftsman have a neon pink pencil readily at hand.
will always win that battle.
to fit snug. I jacked it up, and shot it in place with the 
, into the studs. I created some vertical trim boards to replace the missing ones below the sill out of recycled pallet wood I had stored in the garage.
saw blade to poke holes in the tough soil for some of our group.
to solve complex equations accurately. These alternate methods are just very accurate and very fast. Tom Silva of 
. This neat widget projects light on the work-piece and lays the crisp shadow line of the blade itself on the work piece. There's no single-sided laser to keep adjusted and no batteries, since it's powered by the saw. It's economical and 
from the main line to each plant, staked it, and added a 
. The nice thing about these systems is that you simply punch a hole, add a 
. Easy.
(big ass miter saw - 
came out to play (big ass nail gun - I claim that one). I shot the board into the rafters and then again through the decking, resetting the clamps as I worked across to keep it tight. I actually hit the framing rafters behind,... most of the time.
. 
, I tried to pry off the old facia. It wouldn't come off without damaging the decking and framing, because it was nailed both through the top and the face. I pried the decking up a bit and cut nails with some diagonal cutters for a while. Finding that a pain, that still left some nail-nubs behind, I changed tactics. In came the reciprocating saw with a bimetal blade which sliced the nails off flush as I ran it down the seam, a much better approach.
sent it tumbling to the ground with a clatter. I'm really glad I'd moved the cars out of the way. I used it to trace the angles to the new board before taking it in for a visit with B.A.M.S for a quick bit of slice and dice. No compound cuts this time, just nice simple angles.
, making it easy to constantly flip and swap blades. I used a 
, normally for a router or circular saw, to keep my line.
.
) I had installed earlier, in the comfort of the garage. This particular unit used the push-in style quick connectors for the wiring. Normally, I cut them off and make a tight, twisted joint with my 
as well. The 4" flex duct attached to the fan exhaust port with an included zip-tie. I added a quick wrap of the metallic foil tape that I had left over from the 
allowed for saw blade access.
on a straight line to square it up. Four wood screws zapped in quickly with the 
.
. A total tear-down and rebuild is in order, with a diminutive mud-pie master.
