Friday - 20071221-0715 - Rain - Night Path; Foggy Morning; Fallen Leaves - Fruitless Mulberry; Home Improvement - outside; Home Improvement - inside

Rain - Night Path Larger Image

Another older image for which I have no information. My uneducated guess is that it might be a walkway in a park. There's a central path with what appears to be grass on either side.

I tried some Paint Shop Pro legerdemain to no avail.

I've reached the point in the number of images that as I use one on the web, I move it to a separate folder. In this case, I noticed that the same image is already in the folder, so at some point, I must have previously used it. In fact, it was used with a number of other images on contours provocations - journal - 2007-0524 - thu 2230.

Yesterday when I scribbled a few words, it was raining. And I noticed last night, it had become foggy. One of those fogs that sponges up all sound, and light flare into muted glazes. It has continued this morning, but is more smoke-like. I can see the tops of houses across the street but not beyond.

Fruitless Mulberry Larger Image

Even though I've raked the front yard several times, it is again covered with leaves and pine straw. I've picked up all the limbs and pine cones.

There's a five-foot swath near the front that I raked Wednesday that is still open, so maybe the leaf-falling period is at an end.

Near the drive is a fruitless mulberry that offers splendid golden leaves in the fall. But when they fall, they rapidly turn a nasty shade of brown or black. So that section of the lawn and part of the drive looks like it is covered with dead bats.

I know it was bound to have been like this last year, but maybe I did more raking. All in all, my front yard is a mess.

A redeeming virtue of the mulberry without leaves is that you're able to see the trunk and limbs which are a maze of twists and turns. I love the starkness of the wood, etched and and traced against the complicit sky.

Home improvement continues backwards and forwards. The south side of the house is complete. Except for one small missing piece of shingle at the bottom of the rows. There was just enough space behind it to glue part of a shim. I'll follow that up with some aptly applied spackling and then paint. There are several other places where the shingles have cracked, and with a combination of glue, spackling and paint, I was able to make the problem unnoticeable.

The front stoop and steps have become a royal pain. I've covered the concrete with at least five or six coats of special spray paint that gives it a speckled stone look. I really life the appearance. And I've coated it with two coats of clear acrylic finish. But whenever it rains, the speckled tint splotches. I made the mistake of sweeping some leaves off, and it left behind black streak marks.

I'm going to try a couple more cans of the paint followed by multiple coats of the acrylic finish. I talked at length with one of the clerks at Lowe's, and we explored a number of options but none match this look. The closest possibility is a carport/garage paint that contains colored flakes.

The terra cotta color of the shutters against the brownish-stone gray of the shingles still bothers me. It's too flat and devoid of contrast. Both the shingles and the shutters are done in a flat shade which may be one of the problems. However, it just so happens that I have about five cans of "summer squash" left from when I first started all this. It's is a glossy shine that I'm willing to try on an extra shutter. I would really like to have some version of tan. I guess I could fine a tint I like, have it made-to-order and spray it on. (I think I ruled out the "summer squash," because it was too bright. But I did that before I'd decided on a color for the shingles.)

I've painted part of the living room walls with primer. And I've also applied spackling to the worst crack in the wall. But the resulting surface was always uneven and market with small dimples. So I went over it again last night, and sanded this afternoon, and for the first time, it looks and feels right.

This crack starts at one wall, crosses the ceiling and goes all the way down another wall. I scrapped at the ceiling and made a huge mess two or three times. I applied a rubberized spray-on cover to the crack that did absolutely nothing. Next I tried a rubbery substance that is comes in a putty-style container. That worked much better at filling in the crack. But I had bare strips of ceiling about three-inches wide on either side. I tried spackling once to no avail, because I tried to sand it

. Last night I carefully applied spackling as thick as I could without it dropping all over the floor. This time, I'll leave it as is and not attempt to sand. Next, I'll use some textured ceiling cover and see how that works. The instructions of the can indicate the most elaborate procedure regarding preparation, application drying time I've ever seen.

"Do not use over wallpaper." Paint only when surface and air temperatures are 50 - 90 degrees F. Dries hard overnight and cures fully in one week." "WARNING! If you scrape, sand or remove old paint, you may release lead dust. EXPOSURE TO LEAD DUST CAN CAUSE SERIOUS ILLNESS, SUCH AS BRAIN DAMAGE." "Wear a NIOSH-approved respirator to control lead exposure. Clean up carefully with a HEPA vacuum." "WARNING! CONTAINS CRYSTALLINE SILICA ... which can cause lung damage and cancer."

(In Friday - 20071221-0715 / Out - 20071221-2330) This entry was written in multiple settings.)

Pax! Erin go braugh! Je accuse...