We had a break from the 90° weather of last week and have been taking advantage of it, trying to get some things tidied up around the outside of the house before our kids come to visit.
We have a bug zapper porch light next to our front door, and while it kills a lot of bugs, it also attracts a lot of them that wind up dead on the side of the house. Between that and the mildew that seems to accumulate because of our semi-tropical climate, the front of the place was looking funky. So yesterday, I got out my Karcher pressure washer and Terry and I tackled that job.
The first step was to spray it down with RMR-86 Mold and Mildew Stain Remover. That stuff works pretty well! Terry sprayed it on and we waited a few minutes, then took a long-handled brush and some water with some more of the solution in it and brushed down the area. We were surprised how much that took off.
Then I pressure washed the same area. It’s not perfect, and some of the worst of the mildew spots are still there. I think it may take a more powerful pressure washer than I have to get them off. But it doesn’t look too bad from a distance. Even up close, it’s a lot better than it was.
One thing we seem to have to do every year or so is repaint the metal guard on the lower half of our screen door. We have tried Rustoleum and everything else out there we could think of, but it still winds up getting rusty brown and ugly.
While I was running the pressure washer, Miss Terry spent a lot of time pulling out weeds that have grown up among the plants at the front and on the front side of the house. It seems to be a never-ending job.
One area that was overgrown with weeds was where the control box for our sprinkler system is located. It stopped working quite some time ago, and I just have not gotten around to looking at it until yesterday. It looks like the box is dead because there’s nothing on the digital readout. I don’t know much about these systems, but I tried a few things and couldn’t get it to work. I did some online research and it looks like it will be fairly easy to replace the control box.
Of course, no picture of the yard would be complete without at least one photograph of our citrus trees, right? I know that for the first year, we are supposed to remove any fruit before they get too big and heavy for the branches, but we’ve got seven smell lemons that I’m letting go until my son gets here in less than two weeks. Travis is a gardener and I know he’s going to appreciate them.
The final chore was to spray the yard with Cutter Backyard Bug Control. Mosquitoes and noseeums are always a problem around here, and they seem to love feasting on my chubby little body. We’re getting into the height of their season, so I thought I would be proactive and see if I could at least try to keep their numbers down. I have never used this stuff before, so I will have to wait and to see if it’s effective.
By the time we were done with all that, it had warmed up and we were both pretty wiped out, so we came inside, changed clothes and cooled down, and called it a day.
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Thought For The Day – Shhh. The voices in my head are singing karaoke and I like this song.
Nick Russell
World-Famous, New York Times Best Selling Author, and All-Around Nice Guy!
Nick, the control for your sprinkler system is battery powered. The battery is dead since you have no display. You will have to remove the unit to get to the battery access, which is on the back. It takes two AA batteries that will last about 6 months. However, since the unit has been inactive for a long time, it may be gunked up to the point where it will no longer work even with new batteries.
It’s battery operated probably an orbit brand not that expensive
If you can you would be best served to raise it a little higher so the rain/moisture doesn’t get to it
Nick, you should try Wet and Forget Outdoors on the house. You spray the house and the rain and wind works to remove mildew, algae, etc and it really works. Once it’s worked it’s magic, you only need to reapply once a year. Look it up and see what it does to old cemetery monuments.
Thanks for the tip, Terri. Looks like great stuff and we just ordered some.
I have used Krud cutter also