Did You Know

57 Comments

Did You Know you should never power wash the house or clean the windows until after the farmer is finished with the fields for the year?

Unfortunately the windy day blew this mess right at our house and this is what ended up on my husbands car, on my clean siding and on the windows I had just finished cleaning earlier this same day. Some days you just can’t get ahead! On a good note, my windows were closed and it didn’t get inside my house.

http://www.InDianesKitchen.com

Categories: Did You Know

Tagged as:

57 Comments »

  5. l’m not sure what’s happening here. Is the farmer plowing, and kicking up a dust storm? Or is that some sort of a fog-like thing?

    Reply

  7. What a mess!!! I’m glad your windows were closed, Diane, and hopefully the clean up (the second round) is not too time and labour intensive!

    Reply

  11. I did not know this. But I will say, after two months in Texas without rain and being in a town without a car wash, our car didn’t look so good!

    Reply

  12. As a painter I also have to time things out. Never paint a deck when the cotton wood trees are shedding, It’s best to paint in the shade. Always let the grass cutters know not to blow the grass toward the house. And yes, be careful when you power wash.

    Reply

  15. Well I would be made at that too! All your good efforts gone down the drain, but yes, thankfully there were no windows open! I remember the Summer of 1990, the City put in new sewers on our street. One neighbor at the cross-street came home from work, saw what the bulldozer had done in his backyard, his rock garden, prized flowers and big veggie garden and had a heart attack on the spot and died. Every day for months, there was a cloud of dust permeating the air – it was terrible, so I feel for you. I remember hosing down the white shutters and blue siding on Sundays when they didn’t work, as we were sure, the dirt would never come off.

    Reply

      • Yes, it was terrible and it happened two doors down from me. He lived across the street, but they also were working with bulldozers, so he was told he would not be able to access his driveway or garage for weeks. His wife didn’t drive, but the woman two doors down from me didn’t drive and offered Mr. Fogel his garage and driveway for the entire time. So he drove past his house on the cross-street, saw the damage, pulled up in the driveway two doors away, got out of the car and fell on the floor, dead. The sewer mess was supposed to happen on our easement too and I had planted my back garden (which got burned in the fire) on the easement and my father had put the large shed on the easement (it eventually blew over in a 39 mph wind gust). So I was worried, but they never touched our yard, however, across the street from us, they had a lot and a half and a huge backyard with no fence. So the construction workers decided to park all their backhoes and heavy machinery in the Elmore’s backyard. We were friends with them and they asked if they could dig up all of Mrs. Elmore’s perennials and “plant” them in five-gallon buckets and put them in our backyard. I had mulch in between the perennials and bushes, so I just put the buckets around the yard and on the back porch. She was very upset (so would I be upset), so I just watered and fertilized them as I took care of mine. She had a big hedge on one side of the house – they managed not to damage that, but the rest of her yard looked awful. She replanted her perennials when they were done and they all came back the following year – mostly Coneflowers and Daisies.

      • What nice neighbors, one shares the driveway and you take care of the flowers. I’m sure that was so devastating for the neighbor and so sad he died. You were lucky they didn’t come in your yard. They don’t care how much work they cause people and should be required to put everything back the way they found it. Of course all her flowers came back the next year, you took care of them for her!

      • I was worried sick because the shed and all the bushes and clematises and other perennials were on the easement. Then the shed blew over … I still hesitate to be honest about planting anything there. The firebush is huge now – has to be 10 feet or more and takes up 1/4 of the back garden. Sometimes I think just plant arborvitae there, but if they had to tear up the sewer, I learned that one arborvitae bush is $90.00 (that was at Menards, not at a nursery). I asked a homeowner where he bought his because he planted about 30+ arborvitae along his fence in the Spring and several (maybe 5-6) died. I told him I admired his yard, which I do. I told him I was going to get them for the back fence line and easement area where the fire burned up everything two years ago. I see the squirrels digging up the mulch everywhere … there is landscape fabric, so they are not digging down far. Sometimes I think it would be better to do annuals, but too costly. We did have Mrs. Elmore’s plants the entire Summer. She had such a pretty yard – we would compare our backyards. After her husband died, she got dementia and would stand in the middle of the driveway with her watering can and I don’t think she knew what to do with it … broke my mom and my heart. Her best friend here and neighbors since we moved here in 1966. Sad. And Mr. Fogel dropping dead from a heart attack when he saw his yard … the beginning of a long Summer of construction and messes. Luckily I took the bus to work, so just walked down the street to catch it the next block over, so it only affected me for Saturdays, so I tried to do all my errands, etc. on Sundays when they weren’t working – otherwise they worked six days a week.

      • Everything will work out in your backyard. If you’re anything like me, sit and think about what you want to do with it in the spring. I usually change my mind threes times but end up with what I want, just like the kitchen. How sad to see your neighbor with the watering can, it is such a sad neurological condition.

      • I hope so. I looked at it again today … the squirrels are digging holes like crazy out there in the mulch. There must be 50 holes out there. I cut my rose bush down even more … got three yard waste bags of rose bush … much dead wood. One rose bush was dug up and thrown out … sick about that as it was my original rose bush the year I started gardening. Sigh. Yes, it was sad to see her like that. My mom and I came home that one day and she was standing there, very lost. She was put into a nursing home not long afterward.

      • Yes, they are all about those peanuts. 🙂 Yes, but she didn’t last long, just a month or so. She was pining for her husband who died the year before. They were married for 60 years and never separated except when she had their four children.

      • Yes, our neighbors across the street were like that – my mom always predicted once he died (he had two types of cancer and died from cancer and refused to have hospice so she took care of him) and right after he died, she experienced dementia issues. I’m the only one on the block (20 houses altogether) left from when we moved here in 1966.

      • Yes, my mom wanted to move about 20 years ago when she saw the City and neighborhoods going downhill and suggested we move somewhere else, but that involved possibly being responsible for a mortgage and this house was already paid for, so I wasn’t keen on it and told my mom that our City was not going downhill. But, as most moms are, she was right about the City/neighborhood. All I could see was expense, possible home renovations, more landscaping as I had done everything at this house in 1985 and it took from Spring to Fall to get that done, plus more money if a mortgage, so I wasn’t enthusiastic. I said I’d consider it if we moved to the South, but she was not keen on doing that – too much of a gamble she said, so we stayed put.

      • That house was perfect for you two. You know I always say it’s cheaper to make repairs occasionally than to make payments every month on a new home. I don’t need to tell you that, look at your car! You take great care of that.

      • That’s how I felt Diane – I thought about all the renovations we did in this house, not just Mom and me, but before when my father was still here and I couldn’t go through that again. Nor the outside. This is just the right size for me … that things are messy and crowded in here is my fault, as believe me, it did NOT looked that when my mom was still alive.

      • Those were when neighbors were thoughtful BTW. It is a whole different crowd now. Slowly all the longstanding neighbors retired to Florida and/or passed away.

    • I’m over it and I decided not to rewash the house or the windows. It was just an unlucky day that was very windy and blew right at our house. It wasn’t the farmers fault even though I have to keep telling myself that. Lol

      Reply

      • I would be mad too – I “get” it for sure. I know the Summer with the sewers, no matter what you did, there was brown dirt everywhere. I think we kept the windows closed and blinds down most of that Summer.

  17. I wish there was a dislike button. I’m sorry that happened but be glad you’re out and away! I used to be surround by farmland, out and away. But everyone else wanted to out and away too! Now I have a million neighbors, and the farmland and cows are all gone! I would take a farm dust bowl about now over this traffic and noise and too many people! I miss the cows!

    Reply

    • Thank you, at least it made me feel good for a few minutes before the farmer showed up. I seriously just finished the windows and he came down the road and pulled right in. I’ve been waiting for him to plow next but it’s getting too cold to have the windows dropped inside to clean. It will have to wait until spring now. Lol

      Reply

Leave a Reply