Handyman
When we moved into our house, there was a lot to do. The backyard looked like the hillside. Once a female mountain lion almost jumped on me... : )
There was a lot of work I put into projects. All that allowed me to spend more on my hobbies and improved the quality of our lives and earned the title: "Member of the Handyman Club of America"… : )
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Our house in 1996 |
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The backyard |
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New lawn |
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This cactus has good fruit |
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After the "facelift" |
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New fence |
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The stone work |
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I made these items out of scrap wood, back in 1973-74 when I was a "woodpecker".
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Earthquake!
We’ve had some power outages here in Santa Clarita and Castaic, so I decided to get a power generator. We didn’t have to wait too long to put it to use. On the 17th of January 1994 on Martin Luther King’s Day, shortly after 4:00AM we were awakened by the biggest earthquake we experienced so far. It was the Northridge earthquake, in the San Fernando Valley, I call it “The Big One”. It was 6.9 on the Richter’s scale and caused a lot of damage in the region. The cities of Santa Clarita, Castaic, San Fernando Valley, parts of Los Angeles lost power. There was eerie darkness all over. We were without utility power for a day and a half. Our Generac was running non stop. The Generac can’t handle the load, when temperatures soar into the 100’s Fahrenheit in the summer, so I got an 8 KW Coleman “Powermate” generator that is capable of 10KW surge. Now we have a peace of mind...
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Save the water!
As the temperatures in the summer run over 100 degrees Farenheit sometimes over 105, 110, the lawn would require lots of watering to keep it green and would cost a lot of money. We plowed up the back- and front yard. I dug up a trench 15" deep, 20" wide and 23' long for a block fence foundation. The exercise put my blood pressure back to normal, 120/80 on the average right after work.
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It all required a lot of work with shovel, pick axe, spade, hoe and rake. I started last October and by February 2012, most of the work in the front is complete. There is a lot more to do, but I am satisfied so far. We will recover the expense in savings on water bills on the long run.
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