Tag: Spring

March 27, 2024 – The 1990s Called, They Want Their Fountain Back

March 27, 2024 /

Spring is in the air. No, it is not exactly here but I think that we are past the worst of winter. A water feature that I purchased for my wife’s birthday a couple of years ago sat idly on the deck. I know for a lot of people, the sound of water brings serenity. Not me, but she wanted it on.

She came in frantic saying that it was broken. I feared that freezing weather might break the glazed clay structure. I had drained all the water, but that wasn’t enough as the base had split. I felt bad because nerves about upcoming biopsy was getting the best of her. Sure, we can replace it but that isn’t going to calm nerves the night before a hospital stay and potentially life altering information.

Back in the late 1990s there was a trend to to have these small, table-top, serenity fountains. We had one as well (from here on out, I will call it mine). It had sat in storage for years (and years). I remembered that we had it, so I sprung into action.

The one I had was home built, meaning the pump was purchased separately from the bowl and the bedrock and the focal rock. We had used a piece of bamboo to conceal some PVC tube from the pump and it never quite flowed the way we wanted it. After a month or so of running, the bamboo would break and then I would run around and try to find a suitable replacement. To top it off, I filled the bowl with aquarium gravel and that took all of the volume in the bowl so it was always running dry.

Being much older and wiser (and tool richer) now, I thought I will drill a hole in the focal rock for the water to come out of. Forget the bamboo and the tubing and it will look a lot nicer too. The roughly and poorly adhered slices of slate cemented together broke in three pieces. but I did get a through hole in two of the pieces. So, I forced the PVC tubing through the two so that they would roughly look like they belonged.

I have some work to do still. But, you can see it is working and I think it looks better than it did before. I want to put some hardware cloth down for the rocks to sit on. I tried a couple of steel rods that I had with some window screen over the top. It kind of worked, but I didn’t have time to wait for serenity.

Changes to make.

  1. Weld up a steel super structure.
  2. Purchase hardware cloth (wire mesh) and cut to fit the bowl
  3. Layer the window screen on top of the hardware cloth
  4. Adhere the two pieces of focal rock back together and place
  5. Finally, add the base rock
  6. Maybe, embellish a little more with craft store or aquarium finds
  7. And now we are back in the 1990s, but much better

End Your Programming Routine: This fountain does not make the noise of the outdoor fountain. But, I think it has the potential to look nice and it does take it out of storage. I can also put it in a place that my wife can enjoy it while going through treatment even if winter continues.

February 2, 2023 – Happy Groundhog’s Day

February 2, 2023 /

I had a co-worker that loved this day for some unknown reason. He would play this movie on loop and bring in donuts. Maybe it is because some years, we were reliving the same day as the last day. One year specifically, I was in the middle of a huge snowstorm. I had been on-site the entire month of January and I was going to be there the whole month of February. Things were not going well and we did the only thing we could do, just keep going.

Believe it or not, I have never watched this movie. I have seen clips on YouTube and I have seen the loop but I have never sat down and watched it beginning to end. Supposedly, the protagonist lives his day over and over again until he gets everything right; I guess according to the universe. Maybe today is the day?

Of course, I am not a big believer of the whole Puxatawny Phil concept. It would be impossible to have the same weather in Pennsylvania as I have a whole country away. That being said, tradition is a good thing, nonsensical or not. The good news is that Spring is on the way weather we like it or not.

I look at February as a transitionary month. We sometimes get 60 degrees and sunny. We sometimes get snow storms. But what I really look at is the light level. By the end of the month, we will see it getting dark around 6pm or after the traditional end of the workday. To me, this ends the dark to work and dark when leaving days. I suppose that if I lived in Alaska, I would say the end of ‘Dark Winter’. There is a dramatic difference in the light levels from the beginning of the month to the end of the month.

Of course, I am going to spend half the month away from home. I will miss my son’s birthday and Valentines Day once again. Not only will there be hell to pay for that, this new debt that I owe but also this is the prime time to get some stuff done around the house. For instance, President’s Day is the target for getting roses pruned. And speaking of pruning, there are fruit trees, grapes, etc that need to get done before bud. This is another sign of transition.

In my climate I will likely see three more months at least of rainfall and mostly sub-sixty degree temperatures whether Phil saw his shadow or not. That doesn’t mean that there won’t be some good days too. The same as with the concept of the movie. It seems like I am living the same day over and over again, but then there are some days that are downright pleasant.

End Your Programming Routine: Like Yin and Yang, winter and summer are separate but interconnected. It is not a duality like described in Atlas Shrugged but a duality like light and dark or fire and water. Our downtime is quickly slipping away as the light is coming and then it is time to hit the ground running again.