Wednesday

I set about investigating how our mailbox works with the idea of replacing it while John pruned around the old A/C unit to help our contractor who's coming Thursday to begin removing the unit and re-building the wall.

I undid a couple of screws on the back.

And a bolt on the front. Then I slipped the entire mailbox and post off of a 4 x4 wooden post that was in the ground. It was not in concrete, just rocks and dirt. It was rotten, covered in carpenter ants or termites, slowly disintegrating. With that information, I headed to Ace, Lowes, and Home Depot trying to find a suitable replacement. I found it to be more complicated than it should be. We will need to dig out the old wooden post and replace it with a post embedded in concrete. Then we can slip the new metal sleeve over the new 4 x 4 post. Then attach a bracket to the post, then the box to the bracket, then the numbers to the box. Since I didn't find anything I liked locally, I'll shop online and have it delivered. When that is done, then I can pick up concrete mix and a 4 x4 post.

After hitting the big box stores, I came home and had lunch. Afterwards, John went jogging and I went to Weaver park to exercise.

It warmed up to 72 while I was there. The high temperature for the day was 78 degrees.

Later in the afternoon, I pruned the dead blooms and leaves on the bird of paradise bush. Soon, I'd like to take a shovel to it and cut the root ball, about a 1/3 of it. We need to get the plant further away from the house. The best time for major surgery is late January/early February before spring.

John and I filled up 3 bins with yard debris. The gardenia bush had to be over 30 years old. The trunk is huge. I removed two brackets from under the A/C unit. They weren't touching the unit; apparently, they were for a previous unit. 

Then the sprinkler guy called and asked if he could drop by this afternoon instead of Thursday morning, which is great because we have a lot going on Thursday.

He pronounced our valves and solenoids as ancient, some of them leaking, which is the same thing our lawn service said. The equipment is so old that it would be foolish to replace only the valves and solenoids. The best thing to do is to rebuild the entire manifold, which is everything you see in the box: pipes, valves, and solenoids. He says the parts used in our manifold, like the compression rings at the bottom, are not used anymore and those particular valves are obsolete. The manifold above services stations 3, 4, 5, and 6 (both side yards and back yard).

Same for the front box which contains stations 1 & 2 (services the front beds and lawn). He said the equipment was not leaking, but one of the solenoids was cracked. It's just a matter of time before it fails. We decided to replace them all. That way, they will all be the same and up-to-date. He said he could do it Friday. So, we said yes.

Stations 1 & 2

In addition to the contractor, two roofing companies are coming on Thursday to give us a quote on our roof, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. That will give us three bids to choose from.