The Nest's Backyard Hot Tub

Our Hot Tub Addition To The Nest's Back Yard

When we first moved in, the back yard was pretty much nothing but dirt, covered by leaves, enclosed by a dillapitated fence, overgrown with bamboo in both corners. The hard to get rid of kind, but we managed to get most of it out of the way. We put the shed in sometime after that. Ann wanted it behind the carriage house but having just finished getting rid of the rest of the bamboo from replacing the fence, I didn't even want to think about taking out more bamboo there and having to repair or replace that section of fence too. It was easier at the time to just set it up between the big oak tree and the back corner of the house. The trees came out just after the 4th of July in 2016 and thankfully we didn't have to move it then. It wasn't long after that we did move it though, more like skid that shed over behind the garage.

Ever since I replaced the window on the side of the garage with a door, Ann wanted to put in a patio by it, to give us a place to sit and enjoy the back yard, and sod to keep the dirt to a minimum. We still have the patio, and quite a few "enhancements", but the sode came and went about as quickly. As quickly as the dogs wore a path in it, tearing it up in short order, we realized we needed something else. Artificial turf to the rescue! But even that took time, money, and effort. The railroad expanded over time to (almost) recover to the former planned folded dogbone layout... Until I ran out of track! Well, now that I've bought another 200 feet of flex track, 100 feet at a time, we're expanding again. This time, we're adding a hot tub to give us another view of the Barkyard Railroad, as we call it.

(Thursday, 20 June 2019)

Ann and Nick setup the new hot tub this evening. Can't wait to float in it tomorrow night... But I guess I'll have to wait. And wait even longer as work gets in the way as it has quite a bit lately. So much for my goal of working remotely more often! But that's getting ahead of myself again... It will be another couple of weeks before we start to make the hot tub a central interest in the Barkyard, and the effort that goes into it, nearly as much as the railroad itself. They levelled the ground and tamped down the sand and even put down padding so sitting on the bottom would be comfortable. It's an inflatable hot tub, made by Coleman of camping gear fame! It's really kind of neat, the built in air pump for making the bubbles doubles to inflate it and deflate it as well. I stay out of the way, knowing that my help is neither needed nor desired.

(Saturday, 29 June 2019)

We decide it's time to break in the new hot tub and we all get in. It's not really hot though, more like tepid, and it doesn't seem to want to heat up either. We're in for at least an hour but it's still only 88° even though it's set to 100°. Oh well, it's still enjoyable and feels good on my back. The worst part is having to use the bathroom, walking inside into the air conditioning, dripping wet and freezing by the time I'm done. But at least I can grab another beer and head back outside. I started off trying to run the green train, but for whatever reason, it's just not reliable tonight. I switch it out onto the station siding and break out the doodlebugs like Ann wanted to begin with. We watch them chase each other until they finally manage to catch up to one another, then couple and circle the layout together.

Klaus is here with Brigel and we're getting the biggest kick out of the two of them taking turns getting into the "pond" under the howe truss railroad bridge. Then they chase each other around the layout a couple of times and get back in the pond. What a couple of characters!

(Sunday, 30 June 2019)

Ann and Nick are preparing supper and I'm sitting here relaxing, waiting for time to eat, which doesn't take long. Then we're off to DQ for dessert. Our reward is soaking in the hot tub again, but this time in a hot tub, not tepid like yesterday. I get the doodlebugs set up and running and I'm the last one in. We soak for half an hour or so, then it's time to get out. There's still enough time for Nick to get to Lowe's and get the rest of what he needs to finish running the power feed to the new (to us) lathe. He put in a new sub panel for just the big garage machine tools yesterday, freeing up a number of slots in his main disconnect panel, leaving him with ample free space in the new sub panel for any new equipment that may come along in the future.

(Saturday, 13 July 2019)

Moving dirt, and a LOT of it. At least five yard carts full. When Ann removed all that river rock along the path, she covered the now empty space with artificial turf, without leveling out the ridge of dirt from when she put the rock in. It's always been noticeable and every time it rains, it becomes a fast moving stream of water heading straight for the back porch. Today we're fixing those shortcomings and leveling it out so the "grass" will lay flat, and hopefully better handle the runoff. Perhaps it would be better to describe it as "sloping" the terrain so that the lay of the land is better suited to handling the runoff, carrying it away from the back of the house rather than toward it.

We start by rolling back, well, Ann starts by rolling back the turf and taking out the long wire "staples" that hold it to the ground. She removes the weed control cloth and my work begins. I haven't even moved a yard cart of dirt yet and I'm already drenched with sweat! Yep. We live in Florida. And it's summer. I get it. But this is finally getting done and the first part of our "mountain" is growing. I use some of the dirt to fill in the "ditch" Ann left where the river rock used to lay. The rest of the "ridge" gets moved to the new raised bed inside the upper loop, the base of the "mountain". Ann set the waterfall part of her old fountain at the end of the pond we put in under the Howe truss bridge, but now we need to add a water feature behind it, and above it. I keep telling Ann there needs to be a reason why the water flows in that direction instead of just down the slope toward the paver path.

I don't think she understands what I'm talking about, but she knows she doesn't want a big pile of dirt in the middle of the upper loop. For now we've settled on "staircased" planters arranged in terraces, but it's going to take a LOT of dirt to build that up, so we're starting with just another planter that reaches the height of the waterfall. We've disguised the face of the planter with junipers and cypress surrounding the warterfall, and reed-like grass in the river rock around the pond. We discussed extending that new planter under the raised track on that side of the upper loop to join with the existing planter along the fence, where the now out of control bougainvillea has really gone crazy since it nearly got frozen out last winter, 2018. Ann agrees we can make a first level terrace to allow a "step over" path and a place for the tunnel for the new lower loop I want to add here now that I have enough track.

Eventually I get all the dirt moved and levelled and ready for the turf to go back down. While I'm doing that, Ann and Nick are off to Lowe's to get some Trex to make a deck around the hot tub. I figure around one hundred board feet will do the trick. I tell Ann get twelve eight footers, or ten ten footers, or eight twelve footers, whatever they have that fits the bill. I had no sooner sat down in my recliner to cool off than they got back. Nick shows me the Trex "hidden" hold down kit he got to go with the Trex boards. I set it on my table saying I'll look at it in a bit while they go pick up some McD's lunch for us. I'm having to hurriedly draw out a plan for the deck so I know for sure I'll have enough Trex and how long I have to cut the boards.

We finish lunch and I ask Nick if the Trex is ground contact rated, thinking I can just rip a piece of the 1x6 into two pieces, then lay them flat to act as joists. The alternative is the two of them going to Home Derpo to get ground contact rated pressure treated 2x4s. I don't like that idea much, seeing how quickly those pressure treated stringers for the railbed rotted out. Not to mention the fact that it would now be four inches off the ground instead of just one. Nick makes an attempt at looking it up online, but can't find anything conclusive, and is heading home to get some things done. That leaves Ann and I to put the deck together... Well, me to put the deck together. First I check to see what the online opinion of Trex in ground contact is... Cool. It should work. And as short lived as things like this end up being around here, it probably won't be on the ground long enough for it to matter. It takes me a few more hours to get the plan in a good enough state to start the cutting. I can tell Ann is getting restless, like "why are we still just sitting here?" so I figure I'd better get moving.

I print out the dimensioned drawings and we head outside. I set up the saw horses and makeshift bench, then I set the chopsaw on it and get it set to cut some joist length pieces. With those cut, I head into the garage to rip them in half. I have just enough to start assembling the first straight part of the "ell" shaped deck. I set the saw to 22.5° and cut my first pieces. By now, I'm drenched in sweat again, now in my second set of work clothes. It's like I've been swimming, only in sweat, not the pool. I head inside to cool off and use the calculator to see what combination of lengths creates the least waste, but I'm soon to the point of whatever. It seems like no matter how I do it, there's always going to be waste, and not much of it. Back outside, I finish the pieces I need for the straight part and part of the angled part the goes around the corner to meet the other straight part, a mirror image of the first except with a cutout for the pump. First I layout the straight section I cut on top of the ripped joists on sixteen inch centers and try it out...

Yeah. Not liking the flex at all. By now, Nick is back and he and Ann try it out as well. Ann's fine with it, but Nick is thinking the same as me, go with twelve inch centers. I reconfigure and like that much better. It feels solid now. They are off to Lowe's again while I finish cutting up the rest of the Trex. I had told Ann earlier I may need one more of the twelve footers, asking if the eight footers were the same, but they're not. She asks if I still need that extra one and I tell her I'll know in a bit. She gives me that look of "we're not waiting", so I tell her just get another twelve footer and we'll have it if we need it. Turns out that was a good call, but I'm getting ahead of myself. They head off and I finish the cutting. It looks like I have a bit less than four feet left of the last of the original eight twelve footers. Good enough for now. Time to start assembling...

I need to clean up the saw and all the plastic "sawdust" first though. I grab the wastebasket and the dustpan and my new horrible freight brush from the garage to "sweep" off the saw and the benchtop. There's a LOT of it too! Every time I move the chopsaw, more falls out, packed into the vaccum port and dust collection bag I suppose... I finally get it all cleaned up and the saw moved out of the way. I decide to flip the benchtop over so the bow is now a sag to avoid the constant rocking over a high center the bow would cause as I try to assemble the three sections. With a sag in the middle, I can slightly bend the boards to contact the joists beneath. Before I even start I somehow know this fine quality Chinesium is going to be the worst part of all. I read the sheet on how to install using these pieces of shit and rolled my eyes. First off, square head drive screws, heads painted black to "hide" them against the black plastic spacer keepers that fit in between the boards and into the grooves routed down the sides of them. There's even a small bag of loose piece screws for the edges...

The best part? The kit only gives you four starter clips, like that would be enough for even the shortest of boards on sixteen inch joist centers. Just underwhelmed, but as I told Nick, I'm not blaming him for their profit making bullshit. It is what it is, a way to easily assemble everything. So with the boards for the straight side sitting atop the joists laying flat on the bench, the assembly begins. As I said, the Chinesium quality factor on these shit fasteners is underwhelming, stripping one out of every three of these cheap @$$ screws. I finally get so pissed off at having to back out and throw away yet another of these cheap @$$ screws, I grab my "box" of stainless steel trim screws, and the first section is finished and on the ground. That's one. Two more to go. I start to assemble the angled section as Ann and Nick look on, watching me dripping sweat, literally. I start off by just assembling enough of it to allow me to lay it on the ground and begin to connect it to the joist under the angle cuts already attached to the straight section.

As I wallow on the ground, struggling with assembling the remaining boards on the angled section, it starting to get dark. Ann says I should knock off for the day and pick it up tomorrow... Especially if we're still getting in the hot tub. I ask how much daylight I have left. Better yet, what time is it? After eight o'clock already? Sounds like a plan. I clean up and get things squared away, and even though Ann said don't bother with the turf, I still unroll it so I'll have something nice to walk on back and forth to the hot tub. We all don our suits and get in, enough of the deck in place to not have to worry about tracking dirt everywhere. I'll finish this up tomrrow, but for now, a nice soak in the hot tub with a couple of beers should help to relieve the aches I'm feeling. I'm the last one in and overflow it! That's alright though and it feels WONDERFUL! We soak in it for two entire bubble cycles. I'm not sure how long they last before the timer automatically shuts them off, but it's both a convenient as a means of telling how long we've been in, together with the inconvenience of having to turn them back on when you're not ready to get out yet...

But eventually we all do get out, and it's late! Nearly ten o'clock. Nick heads home, Ann settles in, as do I. After getting the coffee ready for in the morning that is...

(Sunday, 14 July 2019)

Back at it first thing today. Ann asks if I'm doing anything with the exposed areas of dirt on either end of the straight sides. I tell her that's what I'm planning out now and show her my plan with four boards, asking if we should go with three or four. She says three should be plenty, but I'd rather have four. We'll let how much we can get out of that last board decide how many. I finish up my drawing and print out the additional dimensioned views I'll need. First I need to assemble the other straight side with the cutout for the pump, and before I can do that, I need to get my workbench set back up. After all the issues I had with assembling that angles section board by board on the ground, this time I'm going to just assemble the entire section then deal with how to secure it to the joist beneath the angle cuts. I finally manage to get the damned thing together after stripping a bunch more of those fine quality screws and Ann helps me put it in place, once she fits and cuts that black weed control cloth to fit that is.

I'm just a bit crabby and snap about how it needs to line up with the other one and Ann takes it as me yelling at her. I tell her I'm not upset with her, but rather the sloppy cutting and assembly job I did on the angled section. I'll need to take it back apart and cut some of the boards. Unfortunately, the middle board is just a bit too short, and it shows. The outer two boards are too long and need cut shorter, if I can get the damned things loose again. It takes me longer to get those two loose than it does to cut them to size and put them back in place! Mainly because I end up having to destroy half of those plastic spacer things just to be able to bend the now entirely stripped screws back and forth to break them off. They're far too slippery to get even a good pair of pliers on them enough to wind them out. While I'm not happy I had to take it back apart, it definitely looks much better now that it's back together, with the middle board the only "flaw" that still shows.

I quickly attach the straight section to the rest of the deck and that much is finished. Even though I thought I'd levelled the ground well enough, it still bends downhill toward the back of the house when you step on that end by the pump. It will be good enough as Ann says since the only time you'll be stepping there is to take the cover off the hot tub. Now to get the chop saw set up to cut those 45° sections for either end. I manage to find enough to cut all four pieces for each of those two remaining sections, but it's looking like I'll have to limit it to three because I didn't leave myself enough for the joist pieces to be long enough to support all four. Oh well, three it is. I cut the remaining joist pieces to length, then it's back and forth to the garage to rip, then cut them to size as I assemble one, then the other. I have to level for both of them, then Ann fits the rest of the weed control fabric and we're done! Good thing too since I'm on my third pair of work shorts and my fourth work shirt, now drenched in sweat as well.

I do my dustpan clean up act again and get everything put away so Ann can install the new turf. We try a couple different fits until Ann's happy with it. She grabs the scissors and starts the task of cutting it in. Unfortunately, the old turf is full of dirt and isn't cutting very well. She asks if I have a knife, so I grab my good one from the kit bag in the garage. I check the blade and it looks like new, but she's still having problems because of the dirt. Once she gets beyond that old piece, cutting the new piece goes fairly quickly. Meanwhile, not wanting me to be able to sit around while she's working, I'm put to task skidding the big half barrel planter over behind the maple tree by the fence. I joke that she really doesn't want me sitting around but we both agree, it will be in the way of fitting a piece where it's sitting and all the dirt around it. It doesn't take long, even taking a break to refill my water glass while I catch my breath. I do manage to break another one of those flower spinners that never spin, brittle from the UV exposure.

Grilled chicken fajita wraps for supper then DQ for dessert with the pups. We let the two of them run around the Barkyard while watching them chase each other at full gait then taking turns getting in the pond. At one point, they're both in there at the same time! By the time I think to grab my phone to get some video, let alone pictures, they're done. All tuckered out. Now Ann wants to take them both over to Nick's back yard. They're both soaking wet and kind of dirty, but Nick drives the shepherd shuttle to his place, everyone included. They don't seem to be real interested in playing, at least, not as spirited as they were in the barkyard. They still chase around a bit and kind of play with some of the toys, including the jolly balls Brigel hasn't seen in ages. But neither of them really seem to want to play much more. Then Ann has the brilliant idea to try to get them to swim in the pool... And I'm cringing watching what ensues.

It's prompted by Brigel laying on the pool deck, putting his front paws in the water and taking a big drink from the pool. Ann decides to hop in the pool still fully clothed since none of us thought to put on a swim suit. I see what's going to happen before it happens and I'm not liking it at all! I'm just waiting for his hind legs to get stuck between the deck and the side of the pool, ready to grab them up before he breaks them. Sure enough, just as my panicking brain predicts, his hind legs are stuck there as Ann is trying to pull him in the pool with her. I quickly grab them up and push his hind end over the edge of the pool. Crisis averted for now, but I tell Nick we need some some of ledge out over that gap before we think about doing this again. He agrees and now we're discussing building a ramp of sorts out of Trex, not too steep, for them to just walk in and out from the deck.

As we're discussing it, Ann brings Brigel over to the steps, but he's unable to get a good enough hold to get himself out, so I have to jump in with my clothes on as well, just to boost him out. I'm hoping that's the end of it, but now Brigel wants to walk out along the edge of the pool, like walking a tightrope. This time we all see the hazard that presents and get him back solidly on the deck. But that's not enough potential disaster for one day. No. Let's see if we cna get Klaus in the pool... He doesn't want to get in even with Ann coaxing him from in the pool. Now Nick is in with his clothes on! He cradles Klaus and brings him in the pool. While Brigel seemed somewhat calm, Klaus isn't. And while not freaked out, he is quite a bit more frantic than his brother was. Just to make sure there's enough excitement, Brigel decides to do his tightrope trick again. That's it! Everybody out of the pool...

So now that all of us are dripping wet, it's time to figure out the transportation arrangements. Ann decides she's walking Brigel home. Nick isn't so sure that Brigel isn't too tired out, but Ann is adamant that she and Brigel are just walking home. I decide I'll go with them to give Nick a chance to feed Klaus and get ready to get in the hot tub in a bit. When we get to the house, we're still pretty wet, but I just take off my shirt, hang it to drip, and get in the hot tub. Ann isn't getting in, so it's just me and my beer until Nick gets here. When he does, I ask him if he wouldn't mind getting me another beer before getting in. We sit and soak until the bubbles kick off, then sit and soak some more before I decide to get out. It's not as late as it was last night, but tonight we have the new turf in place and a complete deck to walk on. There are still some things that need done, but we're damn close... Close enough for now.