WSDL Viewer

This won't mean anything to most people, but today I found a WDSL Viewer that uses XSLT to render an HTML page. It's a nifty use of XSLT and a nicely presented output. I couldn't have done better myself.

The Deck Project

With all of the work on the driveway, the rain barrel project, the garden, the walkway and getting ready to go to Alaska, you may have thought that we couldn't possibly have had time to work on anything else, but somehow we managed to fit refinishing the deck into the mix.

We have two very nice decks - a larger deck off the living area and a smaller one off the master bedroom. Unfortunately, the main deck had never been properly stained and sitting in the sun every day had left its mark.

The underside of the deck was even worse - because it never saw the sun, it was coated in layers of black mold. The smaller deck had been stained at some point and although it was not very well done, the wood was better protected from the elements, so we decided to start with the larger deck.

After doing some research on deck refinishing, we did the following:

Step 1. Clean the deck

Using a power washer, deck cleaner, and a lot of elbow grease, we sprayed, scrubbed, and rinsed until most of the black mold was removed and the most of the random remnants of old stain had been wiped clean. Between the power washer and the deck cleaner, it was surprisingly easy to remove the build-up, though still hard, hot work in the sun, so many thanks to the deck cleaning crew!

Step 2. Sand the deck

We did this by hand and with the help of a small hand sander. It was a big job and took longer than expected due to some rainy weather. Rainy, wet weather will definitely delay every step of refinishing a deck.

Step 3. Stain the deck

We choose a semi-transparent stain that was rich in linseed oil and promised to make the wood water, UV, and mildew resistant. Starting in one corner we worked our way across in stages. This took place over multiple weekends and mostly in the early morning and evening as the deck stain was easier to apply when the wood was not baking in direct sunlight - for me and the deck!

After three weeks, several rain delays, an extra tin of stain, and some close calls - including a storm alert as I rushed to paint the final few steps..........voila! A beautiful "new" deck!

The Driveway Project - Part 5

So, the thunderstorms that were in the forecast (and that left us hanging on the edge of our seats) in my last driveway post, never materialized. We got some light showers, resulting in 0.4 inches of rainfall, but nothing nearly as heavy as the prior ones.

However, over the past week we have had a lot more rain, including 1.21 inches on Wednesday alone. To get straight to the point, the driveway has been holding up much better than before. All the work that we've been doing is helping. The burlap and seed blankets have been holding the dirt and seedlings in place through-out the downpours. There's still been a heck of a lot of water running over sections of the ground (in little rivers), but now it's not moving so fast and taking everything with it. There's still some problem areas need attention, but the "tornado" effect has subsided.

The current problem areas are: at the top corner where the water goes over the edge (as shown by the arrows):


And at the bottom where all the water runs off the driveway after running down the hill. Here you can see the daylilys we planted as an effort to help with the erosion (minus the flowers that recently disappeared):


We just need to figure out the best way to handle these areas. Any ideas?

The other problem that we're going to have to deal with at some point is the growing number of weeds that are sprouting:


Although for the time being, weeds are better than nothing.

Packing for Alaska

I don't usually enjoy packing for trips: I usually leave it to the last minute and end up taking either too much or not enough. Packing for our Alaska trip, brings a whole new challenge to the packing process. We will be spending most of our time out in the wilderness (think no shops, no roads, no toilets, no running water) and are confined to what we can keep dry and fit in a kayak. On the plus side, we've got to buy some exciting new pieces of gear, including: dry-bags, compact light-weight sleeping pads, and water filter (with carbon element). And don't let me forget my new mosquito hat.

The Rainbarrel Project

There's something good to be said for conserving resources and it's always nice to get something for free. Bring on rainwater harvesting and rain barrel project! The project started a couple of months ago, by working on designing a solution to get the water from the roof of the house to the vegetable garden.

The simplest location for rain barrel installation is to place them under the downspout of your gutter. I didn't like that idea because I wanted the barrel near the vegetable garden (where the harvested water will be used) and not near the house (where the water is sourced), thereby eliminating the need to make several trips to carry water to the vegetable garden. I therefore decided to run a hose-pipe from the house to the vegetable garden. For this to work, and for gravity to assist in transferring the water from one place to another, I needed to get the water into the pipe as near to the roof as possible.


If you've been wondering what the funny looking attachment is, it's the somewhat improvised version of the component that redirects water from the gutter on our roof into a hose pipe and on it's way to the vegetable garden. The challenge was to figure out how to attach a hose to gutter and this is what I came up with:


The nice thing about this design is that it has an accessible filter used to keep leaves and other debris out of the pipe, and stop it blocking the inlet. You just need to unscrew the blue cap for access and to clean the filter:


The next part of the project involved finding a suitable (and reasonably priced) rainwater barrel. Google helped locate the New England Rain Barrel company who sell recycled (used) barrels that come with several useful fittings installed especially for rainwater harvesting.

To complete the project, Erin built a solid base to place the barrel on using concrete bricks left over from The Paving Project. Here you can see the job in progress:


Once the base was complete, I hooked up the hose, and all that was left is for some rain to arrive to fill up the barrel.