Earthquake preparedness

Man, have there been a lot of earthquakes lately or what?  Haiti, Chili, Mexicali, Spain . . . in Oregon we're right on the area where the Juan de Fuca plate is being subducted by the North American plate.  Basically, two plates are pushing against the other, creating increasing pressure.  Eventually the pressure hits a crucial point and one plate jumps a little and moves over the other.  The North American plate is overtaking the Juan de Fuca plate and all that action is taking place along the Oregon and Washington coasts.

I love dropping this knowledge at parties. Before I went to library school I intended to become a geologist.  

They estimate large earthquakes happen because of this subduction every 300-500 years.  The last one, the Cascadia quake, caused a huge tsunami in Japan and widespread damage in the Pacific Northwest.  It took place in 1700, so we're due.

I've been meaning to put safety straps on my water heater so it wouldn't fall over in the case of an earthquake.  I finally got around to buying the straps but then I was stymied by the cement walls in my basement.  I didn't want to create a potential water leak by drilling into the cement walls.  I decided this was one of those things I should hire out.  At the very least, if they make it leak I can call them and make them fix it until it's right.

I used Neil Kelly and the carpenter they sent out was absolutely the NICEST skilled laborer I've had at the house (and I've had some really nice ones).  He waterproofed the bolt holes with some sort of tar-like substance.  He also cut PVC piping to measure so the water heater wouldn't rock and hit the wall.  I definitely wouldn't have thought to do that.

All told it took an hour and $105 to complete.  Since I was already down there I decided to finally flush the water heater.  They recommend doing it once a year to get rid of the sediment that builds up at the bottom of the tank.  You just cut the power, grab a bucket, and open the valve at the bottom.

Commence brown yuckiness!

Here's to hoping all this is unnecessary and that the big one doesn't hit for another 100 years, hopefully after we've retrofitted all the bridges in Portland!

One plant mystery solved

I was at the Home Depot on Saturday and I saw one of my mystery plants!  Remember this guy?

Turns out it's a Fatsia Japonica.

This plant is also known as Japanese Aralia or false castor oil plant (sexy!) and it can get to eight feet tall.  That sort of makes me want to remove it, but then I read this:

"In Japan, the shrub was traditionally planted on the north side of a home to help ward off bad spirits." (Source: rainyside.com)   

So now I really can't remove it.  What if bad spirits take up in my house?  My roommate is already convinced we have a basement ghost, so who knows what could happen next!  Well played, mystery plant.  You can stay.

On the plus side I get to make me cookies!

Outer beauty

Remember that realtor who told me house was ugly?  Every time I pull into my driveway I wish I could repaint the exterior and pull out those awful rhododendron.  Some day.

I got my newsletter from This Old House recently and they had a bit on painting your house for $500.  It's a TON of work, sanding, caulking, scraping, and powerwashing, but it beats the three to six grand it costs to have a professional do it.  It got me thinking about next summer and how that might be the time to tackle this.

And then? And then! And then I saw this article on Lifehacker about a site called ColorJive.  You can upload a picture of a room and "paint" the walls using Sherman Williams or Benjamin Moore colors.  It's really fun--instant gratification!

Too brown!

Too green!

Too grey!

Hmmm.  That's nice.  I was curious what kind of paint colors were used when my house was built so I checked out Sherman Williams' historical color palettes.  They had the orange color I already picked out!  I tried on the combination for size.

Oh, ick.  No brown for me.  But I liked the green.  So I made a mash-up!

Of course, who knows what I'll pick when I actually get around to doing this.  But I love plotting..  I've been thinking about painting the slab in the backyard.  Why not use ColorJive?  My first instinct was to paint it robin's egg blue, since that is the color you see the least in the garden.  And I've planted a LOT of pink flowers.  But I also tried a bunch of other colors because, hey, you never know what's going to look great.  And I put in some pink and green dots that are supposed to represent plants.  Just go with it.

Purple:

Maybe too bright?

Pretty, but maybe too muted?

And red, a more intense version of what is already there:

This one is called Blue Shoes!

What do you think?  Is there a color I overlooked that I should mock up?  Which blue do you like?  Or should I skip the blue and pull that color in with pots and furniture?

(And go waste some time on ColorJive!  It's fun.)

Mystery plants

I have a number of plants in the yard that perplex me.  This tree was chopped down once and a number of suckers came up.  Nobody has any idea what it is.

Beneath it are hordes of very tenacious suckers.  I suspect they are related.

 

This looks like some sort of dwarf willow.  I thought it was dead but it's actually beginning to leaf out.

I just discovered this one between a clump of bamboo and a rhododendron in the backyard.

I got excited, thinking it was a flowering currant, but the leaves don't match.  Spiraea, maybe?

And then there's this one.  It's cheery looking enough, but I wish it was something else.

These guys are on the back of the house. No clue about them either.

Then there are the mystery bushes in the northwest corner.

And then there are the plants that are just unwanted.  I was so excited that my peonies survived their ungraceful transplant from Z's house!

Then I noticed more blackberry popped up.  Grrrr.

Anybody who can identify any of these plants gets cookies!

Experimenting with the dining room table

I've always wanted to refinish furniture but I've never really known how to do it.  I found this site where a woman in Alaska actually builds and finishes her own furniture.  She writes up and shares her plans and, man, do I ever have the fever to build something now. Especially this:

I

Image from Knock Off Wood

She's so inspiring!  I've bought a number of crappy pieces of furniture on criagslist, thinking I'd refinish them.

I never refinished them.  I bet this happens to a lot of people.

As I was getting furniture-making fever an episode of Ask This Old House about sprucing up old furniture.  I'm not one to ignore a sign (Tivo knows!) so I bought a little can of wood conditioner and a can of polyurethane.  I grabbed the leaf from my dining room table, which was pretty banged up.  I never put in the leaf without putting on a table cloth, so I figured if I screwed it up no one would ever know.  And if it went well I'd have some experience when it came to finishing the table I'm going to build.

First you sand the surface.  I used an ultra-fine grit but I think I should have gone rougher.  It didn't get rid of the scratches.

Then you vacuum up all the dust and wipe it down very very thoroughly with a damp rag. Grit is the enemy of smooth refinishing.

Then you apply a layer of wood conditioner.  Leave it on for 1-5 minutes then wipe off the extra.

You'll want to let this dry for 15-30 minutes.

Then you get to lightly sand, vacuum, and wipe the surface again.

Using a foam brush, apply a coat of polyurethane.  Be sure to think, "Why wear gloves?" and get this stuff on your hands. It smells bad AND it never comes off.  I NEVER LEARN.

Let it dry for at least 4 hours (I waited overnight since it's so wet out) and then sand, vacuum, wipe, and coat again.  Wait overnight and then repeat again.

It's certainly shinier.

It looks a lot better, though there are a lot of scratched still visible.  It's enough of an improvement that I'd like to try and refinish the rest of the table, but in the summer, when it's warm.  That's a lot of sanding and a lot of fumes to endure; I might as well enjoy some sun on my face while I do it.  And then?  I'm building two of those tables, making them nine feet long, and having dinner parties inside AND out.  And then this old table can go in the basement. 

Garden fever!

I officially have garden fever.

I've checked out pretty much every book on gardening in the library where I work.  At night I pile into my bed with my books and my sketches and plot.  This is exactly what I needed to jolt me out of my homeowner ennui.

Last weekend I planted four more peonies and put a columbine in the shade garden.

I planted an Ocean Spray in the back right corner.  Ocean Spray is a native plant which means it's low-maintenance.  No mulching, no pruning, no soil amendments, just plant them somewhere they can go nuts.  Ocean Spray can get to be 15 feet tall and wide, so it should screen out the neighbors behind me as well. 

God, is my yard a mess or what?  In addition to screening out the neighbors (a new fence should help, too), I want to put in raised vegetable beds.  I have a completely annoying brick heap in my yard, presumably left over from a bricked barbecue.

I started grabbing bricks and laying out where I want to put the bed.  But I kept wanting to change the shape and that got really tiring, moving bricks over and over, so I finally got smart and pulled out the hose.

Once I had a shape I liked I moved the bricks.  I ended up with a modified bone shape.  My sister said it looks more like a shark or a boot.

I was encouraged by my friend T to do sheet mulching.  Some people call it "lasagna mulching."  You lay down newspaper or cardboard to choke out the grass, then pile on mulch and organic material.  You kill off the grass but maintain all the bugs and bacteria and established naturey goodness in the soil.  And you keep piling and piling until you have nice soil to plant your veggies in.  I asked one of coworkers to save the newspapers the next time she cleared out the library periodicals room.  That very same day I had two huge boxes of newspapers!

I did this on a rainy day, which worked to my advantage (wet newspaper doesn't fly away).  You just spread out a thick layer of newspaper (between 5-20 pages said one website) and grab some bricks so they don't fly away . . .

Then I grabbed some of the soil from the various pots I had all over the patio and spread it on top.

The next time I mow the lawn I'll use the bag (I usually don't) and spread the collected clippings on top.  I'll start collecting compostable materials like kitchen scraps and throw those on too.  Then hopefully I'll figure out what material I want to use to raise the beds and I can start getting my veggies going before we get too long into spring.

I also planted ranunculus bulbs and sowed sweet alyssum beneath the rose bushes out front.  The maples in the front are leafing out and the color is gorgeous.

I'm planning on planting creeping thyme beneath them.  It should provide a nice ground cover that has the bonus of releasing a wonderful smell when it's stepped on.  So as my roommate gets in and out of her car she should be greeted with a lovely scent.

This is the carrot I had on the stick last summer when I was working so hard on my house.  "Get all this interior stuff done and you can play all next summer in the yard," I kept telling myself.  Hopefully my house will behave and I really can spend my summer toiling in the backyard.  Fingers crossed!