Monthly Archives: July 2006

“Uhm boss, how do we chase the cats without a porch?”

The big house repairs are starting. I was going to replace some rotted boards in our back porch. Somewhere on the street somebody also did that but he also took out the good boards. So I brought 20 of those home because they’re very thick, much thicker than boards you can get nowadays; 80 years ago wood was much cheaper so they used lots of it. But, as it goes with these things, it turned out that the beams underneath were also rotting and a lot more boards were bad than previously thought. I didn’t have that many replacement boards, so the decision was made to replace them all with plywood, just as the guy on the street. Later I’m going to cover the plywood with polyester and fibreglass to make it really weather proof. And while we’re at it, I also replaced all beams that had rotted, and will replace the rusted metal stairs for wooden ones. A major operation, enough to fill a weekend. Or two.

After a hike in Montebello and a refreshing swim and a lazy afternoon afterwards, Alison wanted strawberries. So I thought we’d take an earlie exit and go to the Jean-Talon market, which is located in Montréal’s Little Italy. However, on the evening of the World Cup soccer final that turned out to be a very bad idea. Especially when Italy has won.

We found out the hard way, because all streets were filled with crazed out supporters and all side roads leading to our part of town were closed off by the police. It took us more than an hour to get home, and we didn’t even have strawberries.

The maple tree, recently pruned, seems to be ill. The bark falls off, and underneath it’s crawling with insects. This process had already started before I cut off some branches, but it probably didn’t help.

Sorry tree.