For those of you who have been following for some time, you'll know we've been spreading gravel over the grounds here for quite some time. We would pick a particular area and spread the truck load of gravel that was picked up for the week, then repeat the following week, working our way around that particular area. The most current area is the garden. At this point, we've finally managed to fully cover the garden area, including under the raised beds. With the load of gravel we picked up we even managed to patch up some of the older areas of the garden where gravel settled enough to expose raw ground once again. Some of the older areas have started to get grown over some with weeds, meaning I'll have to figure out some form of weed treatment in order to not have to resort to more drastic means like spreading roundup over the gravel in order to kill the weeds. Spreading anything super toxic on the gravel may not be a big deal but there is a matter of the free ranging chickens that frequent the garden grounds. These people may ingest contaminated leaves from the weeds and end up with the toxic weed killer in their systems, can't have that. So we'll have to see what can be used that will kill the weeds without being toxic to the animals or the greater grounds. Of course as we build more raised beds and set up more furniture in the garden, it will take care of some of the weeds since we'll end up covering said weeds with the apparatus we set up in the future. With the garden pretty much complete, the next target area for gravel is the back area along the eastern fence line, leading up to the firewood staging area. This area for the most part is still bare, with only the immediate firewood staging area and the main driveway running along the house up to the east fence being covered with gravel. The area in between is not. This is where we'll be focusing our gravel attention next. The next thing I took a few moments to give attention to is doing some paint work on the ass end of the Monte Carlo. A few years ago an old newer vehicle we had somehow spontaneously combusted in the driveway and because it was parked behind the Monte, the heat and flames burned the rear bumper cover, taillights, and paint off the trunk. I've long since replaced the taillights and even the bumper cover (with a used piece). At this point the rear still needed to be painted over to make the car more presentable so we can get some insurance back on the car to be able to put it back on the road. This involved prepping the area prior to spraying paint on the ass end. The first part was cleaning the bumper cover up so I can spray black paint on the plastic material. I still had some black trim spray paint in the trailer so I was able to cover this body part with the proper paint. After getting the paint on it I then scraped off the chipped paint on the trunk lid since it was never cleaned up after the fire took its toll. After scraping the old chipped paint off I was able to spray more black paint on the trunk lid to get it covered pretty good. A few good coats on both the bumper and trunk lid ensured a good even covering of paint on the rear body of the car. The last thing I had to do was add the red stripe around the bumper cover since there's a red stripe running along the sides of the car. I had to mask off the bumper with newspaper and tape to cover up everything on the bumper except for the surface in the middle that will accommodate the red stripe. With that done I was able to start spraying paint on the bumper. I used an entire can of generic red spray paint I had in the trailer. One, I wanted to ensure a good even heavy coverage of red paint on the bumper and second, I wanted to use up this old paint that I have in the storage trailer. With the paint on the rear of the car, that's two cans of spray paint I no longer have to worry about. After the car was able to sit overnight, I peeled off the paper and tape to be able to admire the quickly paint up job of the rear of the Monte. Now most will realize that this was more of a backyard job when it comes to paint and body work on a car. There's plenty I needed to do before even spraying a molecule of paint on the car. I can get away with this on the premise that one day I will do full body paint work on the whole car, much less the rear end. By only doing a light patch-up job as far as paint, it keeps me from spending too much time and trouble trying to patch the ass end right, only to have to cover the work when I have to sand down every square inch of body, even the rear section, prior to painting once again. For now, this patch/paint job will hold things down from the aesthetic point of view.
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