Monkey Grass for the River of Rocks

The River of Rocks is in place and had some time to settle.  We have the main upper West Lawn area filled with dirt and planted, so we should not have reason to be running the wheelbarrow over the River of Rocks much (well, except for excavating the last bed).

So we are transplanting the Monkey Grass that we kept over around the greenhouse into the spaces between the rocks in the River of Rocks.  We start with just dirt.

And after a couple of days of scraping the dirt out between the rocks, putting the Monkey grass down in and putting the dirt back, we have Monkey grass between the rocks.

We've continued this on around the house, but not on the section next to the last bed that needs excavating.

We will finish this last section after we excavate the last bed.

West Lawn Sedge

The landscape plan calls for Inland Sea Oats and Texas Sedge in the West Lawn.  We have seeds for the Inland Sea Oats and have tried planting those.  The next step is the Texas Sedge.   Texas Sedge should be drougth tolerant, shade tolerant, and low maintenance.

Linda found some Texas Sedge at McNeal Growers, in Manchaca, Texas, a short drive from Austin.  We bought 27 flats of Sedge.  Each flat is 1 foot by 2 feet, containing 18 4-inch containers.  That's 486 4-inch containers.  $742.50

Linda suggested that we put one container per square foot.  So we laid them out starting at the front edge, next to the Retaining Wall and the River of Rocks and extending West to the big Oak tree.

Since this looked okay, we spent the next day taking them out of the containers and putting them in the ground.

Once they were in the ground, we used Zone 8 of the irrigation system to water them into the ground.  Running Zone 8 for 30 minutes took 770 gallons.

More Dirt for the West Lawn

We ordered another 8 cubic yards of Professional Mix dirt from Whittlesey Landscape Supply.  $439.71 including delivery ($85) and taxes. 

This is to provide the dirt needed to level the last section of the West Lawn between the River of Rocks and the big Oak tree.

It took about 80 wheel-barrow loads to get it from the front of the house around to the back.   That area should now be ready for planting with the Texas Sedge that the landscape plan calls for.

We probably needed about 3 cubic yards for that area, so we had lots of left-over dirt.  We are going to need dirt to fill in the Bottoms, between the Rock Retaining Wall and the Jungle, so we just dumped the rest of the dirt over the Rock Retaining Wall into the Bottoms.

We will need to distribute it around and smooth it out, but it's a start on rebuilding the Bottoms.

Mulching all the beds and trees

Home Depot has the Austin Native Hardwood mulch that we like on sale for $2 a bag, so it's time to mulch all the trees and beds.  We bought 99 bags over several days -- can only fit 18 to 20 in the car at a time.

The Lavender Bed took 11 bags (although almost all the lavender has died).

 The right side of the greenhouse took 7 bags

while the left side of the greenhouse took 10 bags.

 The bed around the Monterrey Oak took 8.

The 3 Elm trees on the West side of the house took 8 bags.

 

 The big Oak in the back yard took 4 bags.

 The front bed, on the right, took 10 bags.

 The front bed, on the left took 5 bags.

 The big oak in the front took 4 bags.

 The peninsula between the two driveways took 17 bags.

There's a new bed around the Shin Oaks in the back, between the two branches of the River of Rocks.  It needed 4 bags.

And then we needed 1 bag for the Pecan in the back,

and 6 bags (so far) for Zone 2.

Toilets and 2000 Flushes

2000 Flushes is one of those "drop in the tank" tablets that turns the water in the toilet blue, and is supposed to make it easier to keep the toilet bowl clean.  But, for us, it doesn't.

There were initial problems where it turned the water red, brown, purple, but these went away after a couple of days.  The company said that the color balance "can shift as the product settles in the toilet".

But the real issue is after things have "settled".  The product does nothing.  The reason is an interesting mixture of the product and the toilet design.  The following is after using the product for about 2 weeks, and not seeming to get anything from it.

This toilet is an American-Standard Champion 4 model, designed to be low-flow and water saving and all that, so it doesn't have the standard "flapper" design to the water closet part of the toilet -- the tank above and behind the toilet seat.  We put this one in in 2013.

If we look in the tank, we can see the tablet has crumbled, and is tinting the water blue.  The longer it sits there, the blue-er the water.  But it's always at the very bottom of the tank -- the blue tint is heavier than water.

The problem is that the flushing mechanism only drains the top 3/4 of the tank, meaning that the bottom part of the tank, where the blue tint is, is left undisturbed by flushing.

The result is that the toilet bowl itself then has none of the blue tint, but is almost completely clear water.

Now this may, or may not, be true of other blue-tinting toilet products, but certainly seems to be the case with 2000 Flushes.

Excavating the West Lawn Bottom Zone, Part 4

Excavating the West Lawn is just more digging.

Which exposes more of this big rock.  The dirt is mixed with leaves and put back further in the Bottom Zone.

More digging.

A day with the jackhammer reduces these two rocks to

and then a day getting the rocks out of the pit gives

Another day of cleaning up the debris, and moving the dirt that was under the rock out of the way.

Extending the River of Rocks

Once the ground level has been settled, and the Retaining Wall mostly done, we can outline the River of Rocks.  Then we can bring the rest of the rocks over and fill it out.

Then we need to settle the rocks down, so that they are level.

And Linda and Lauren believe that the River of Rocks looks better if it flows on both sides of the group of small oak trees.

and we can then settle these.

We borrowed the Pick-up to get 3 cubic yards of dirt (Professional Mix from Whittlesey Brothers) and poured the dirt over the River of Rocks.

We worked it down into the spaces between the rocks, leveled it off and swept the rocks to finish up the placing of the rocks.

Nest Smoke and CO Detectors

The fan for the Heating and A/C system died and had to be replaced ($1032).  That should keep the system going for awhile, but it is about 12 years old, so we should be prepared to replace it.

The Lennox system we have has had a number of problems, so I'm inclined to switch brands.  Consumer Reports suggests that Trane is a reliable brand.  I contacted 3 local Trane dealers and got estimates for replacing our current system with a new one.

One comment by at least two of the three people who came out was that we would need to upgrade to meet current City code.  And current City code requires both smoke detectors and CO (carbon monoxide) detectors for the bedroom areas.  We have smoke detectors, but no CO detectors.  So we will need to upgrade.

We could get just standard smoke/CO detectors for around $60, but the top of the line would probably be the Nest units at $100.  We have one Nest that we got with hotel frequent flyer points, and it seems to be working well, so we will go ahead and get two more.  This will replace the previous units, installed in July 2012, replacing the ones put in when the house was built (1986).

The two units near the bedrooms are wired, so we bought two Nest Protects for wired installation.  Circuit 25 for one and Circuit 35 for the other.  Turn the circuit off, take out the old detector, wire in the new connector, install the base for the new units, plug them in, and switch the circuit back on. 

One outside the master bedroom.

And one in the hallway outside the computer room and other bedrooms.

The Nest units themselves are a bit more complex to make work since they connect with WiFi and an app that runs on an iPad or iPhone.  Since our WiFi is limited to devices whose MAC address is on our MAC address list, but it seems we have them working.  They show up as working correctly on the Nest.com web site when I log-in.

Replacing the Kitchen Microwave

The Kitchen Microwave has been there for 30 years.

But the turntable is no longer working.  The turntable has 3 wheels and one of them has stopped turning, so it has been ground flat on one side and the friction is now so large that the turntable does not turn at all.

So it's time to get a new one.  It's not easy to find one.  Consumer Reports does not evaluate microwaves, but just gives general properties to look for.  The control panel for the Magic Chef is very simple; control panels now seem to be much more complicated with lots of buttons for specific purposes (Specific buttons for popcorn, potatoes, pizza, ...)  All we want is to be able to punch in a time and start it up.

And opening the microwave door seems to be mostly pushing a big button to pop the door out, rather than pulling on it.  It seems pushing the big button would be difficult for older people, so we would prefer a big handle to pull.

The other problem is that we have a "built-in" microwave.  Most microwaves now seem to be for over a range, or for a counter top.  But some counter-top models come with a "trim kit" that makes it look like it is built-in.  Mainly the trim kit needs to make sure there is enough air flow in and out of the microwave.

Eventually  we settled on a Kenmore Elite Model 75223 2.2 Cubic Foot 1200 Watts Stainless Steel Microwave.  Model 405.75223310.  They have a trim kit for this, Model 22273 Trim Kit, 27 inch, Stainless Steel.

The first step is to remove the existing microwave.  That leaves a big hole for the new one.

The main problem we have is that the previous microwave was about 1.2 cubic foot; the new one is 2.2 cubic foot.  The previous microwave was probably a 24 inch model; the new one is a 27 inch model.  So we have to make the hole bigger, especially bigger vertically.  Rather than make the entire hole bigger, we just cut a couple of notches in the top to accommodate the trim kit. We also took the cabinet doors off the cupboard above the microwave, so we could work.

The trim kit first puts a pan down that the microwave sits on.

Then the microwave slides in.  It plugs into the outlet in the back of the hole.

The trim then goes over this.

And we put the doors back on the cupboard above it.  The doors had to be moved up about an inch.

Update.  On 23 March 2017, the microwave stopped making microwaves.  Everything still works, but it does not heat.  15 months after the start of the 12 month warranty.  Since it only cost $150, plus about $100 for the mounting kit, it does not seem to make sense to try to repair it, so what do we replace it with?

Consumer Reports has actually rated Microwave ovens, in their 2017 Buyer's Guide, and this exact model is rated their #2 choice.  So let's assume it was an item defect and not all such model microwaves.  Unfortunately that model is no longer available, but there is a  successor, the model 79393.  It's $250 as is.  Plus this time, we will pay for the extended warranty, so that it won't break.  An extra $50 to make it last for 3 years.

But of course, the new model is a slightly different size.  It still fits in the opening just fine, but the mounting kit won't work.  Instead of 24 x 12.5, the new model is 24.5 x 13.