Friday was Veterans Day and therefore it was day two in a four day weekend for elementary schools. Since no child care was provided by the school for those of us who have regular jobs, I decided we'd made a trip to Oak Glen. Located just out of Yucaipa, Oak Glen is known for its apples and indeed we found some delicious apples (we came home with Mutsu, Delicious Blush, and one other apple. The Pink Ladys and other more usual apples were also good, but the local farmer's market will have those in abundance), apple cider (At $10 per gallon, it's not priced like Trader Joes but it has a real individual and unique taste) , and apple pie (5 lbs of pie for $12 and it's quite clear that it's made with fresh apples, not something out of a can).
Saturday we did the Farmer's market thing and went hiking in PV. Later, I put up gutters around the poorly drained patio area. This area has suffered for years with poor drainage due to a concrete slab patio that settled lower against the house, which was then backfilled with yet more concrete. I guess the previous owners didn't think to gutter the porch.
I was guilty of perpetuating this problem, but under impetus from the risk of flooding due to the location of the new French doors, I decided to install gutters as one of two preventive measures. I previously expressed angst about using white painted metal gutters from Home Depot, but I didn't want to mess around with a special order of brown vinyl to match the rest of the house. I plunged into the task and lo and behold - they turned out great and don't look mismatched to the others at all since they are not side by side with existing gutters.
Later, while cleaning out the older gutters I noticed that a vinyl hanger was broken and other parts were in poor shape because of embrittlement from the sun. These gutters are only at most 4 years old! Considering all factors now: my increased environmental sensitivity, the looks, ease of installation, and perhaps better durability, I'll go with metal over vinyl for any future installations. Seamless metal is probably a luxury that I won't indulge.
The one bad thing that happened this weekend was that in the process of putting up the gutters I took a bad spill off the ladder and hurt my back. I managed to finish up the gutter chores, but my strength is pretty limited right now. Healing does appear to be taking place, making me optimistic that I'll get some stuff done this weekend which will be the subject of a later planning blog.
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