I am happy that the snow is almost all gone. It will be good to have a dry backyard so taylor can play around and I do not have to worry about cleaning her paws everytime she comes in. That gets to be a pain. The last weekend of this month is when a local lawn and garden store has a good sale on fertilizer. I go and buy all 4 treatments for the year at that time. Normally can get out of there paying about 60 to 70 dollars for the whole year. It works out great. Tried it for the first time last year and my lawn did very good. I did put the sprinkler system in and that seemed to help a bunch also. This year I need to do a little patch work in front and I just bought a flat device that I can use to pound down the grass and soil so I can get rid of some of the bumps I made last year putting in the system. I still want to dig up 3 of the valves (two that have a small leak and one that needs to be raised a bit so there is not a hold in the yard. I actually need to dig 2 up to raise a bit). After I get those valves all setup and finished, I just need to put in about 3 more feet of copper pipe and then it will be hooked to the main water line in the house. This spring I hope to put in at least one if not two landscape areas to help cover up and hide some of the utility boxes in the front yard. After those two are in I think the yard will be in good shape and I only will work on getting the grass to look better. I want to put a screen door in the front door so we can leave that open in the summer for a nice breeze. Later in the summer of early fall I want to put a door in the back of the garage so we can let taylor in and out of that door instead of the back sliding glass door.

I went up on sat. Morning and bleached the mold and dried that area up. Fluffed the insulation back up and then put up some plastic under the vent pipe to catch water if it starts to drip again. I will go back up in a few months to see if I can find anymore evidence of water again. Bought some good primer to cover over the water damage. I will get that all cleaned up in a few weeks after it has had some time to dry out. Went to Menards yesterday to look at the prices of drywall. Will be going to rent the Menards truck and getting drywall and some mdf in 2 weeks. I need to go through the numbers again. I want to get as close as possible to the amount I need so I do not have to make return trips and more importantly, I do not want to much extra. I think I am going to get 1/2 inch for the walls, 5/8 inch for the ceiling and I think I am going to spend the extra and put the green board (water resistant) in the bathroom. So I need to re-figure my number of sheets I need of each. I am also planning on putting mdf around the 2 metal Ibeams I have in the basement. Should be pretty easy to use and a nice clean look. Then I can screw the drywall right to the 1/2 inch mdf for a nice finish. I think I will also use the mdf in the two areas I need to make a sofet to cover up some duct work. I have a new dilemma now also. I bought a 52 inch ceiling fan for the office area. Put it together and wired it up and installed it last night. The thing works great. Only problem is it is just big enough that when it is on I get a small flickering in the room because of the recessed lights. Not sure what I am going to do about that. MIght move the lights out just a little bit and see if that helps. The blades do not go underneath the lights but go close enough to give the room a little flicker I guess. Maybe I can put a different cover on the lights so they do not let the light go the way the blades are. I will have to try that. Should be a cheap fix to. So I need to finish up a little more insulation and get the speaker wire run and I will be ready to drywall I believe.

It was raining pretty good this evening. I went up and cleaned up the area and wiped down the piping. No water coming in at all tonight. I will go back up tomorrow to fluff up the insulation and put some plastic up there to catch any water that might come in still.

He came at about 7:50 this morning. Early. That was a good sign I guess. Seemed like a good guy. Showed him the stain on the ceiling. He went up into the attack and looked, thought it was coming from the roof. Climbed up on the roof (through the snow) and looked at the flashing and pipe up there. Only thing he could think of would be that there was some screws up there that were not needed and the holes might let a little water in or the seem in the pipe was letting water in some where and it was running down that. So he took off to the shop to get a new pipe and came back and put that in. A few more trips into the attack and a few more up on the root and he said it should be good. He did say to let the ceiling dry out a bit and wait a bit before I fix it just in case the pipe still leaks. That makes me feel really good. I think he got it though. I plan on heading back up there tonight to take a look. I am going to take up some bleach in a spray bottle to kill the mold at the seam. Will then move all insulation back to let it dry and then refluff the insulation and put a sheet of plastic down so I can see if water is still leaking. I will clean up the pipe so all residue is cleaned off, then I can tell if it is leaking again in the future. After I do all of that I have to refluff all the insulation that we have compressed since 3 of us have made many trips back and forth to fix the problem. Should take me an hour or so I would think. After I am sure that the problem is gone I will prime the ceiling stain spots with some kilts or whatever that paint is called and then paint over it with the white that is should be. Hopefully problem solved. No cost so far. Will have to buy some primer and that is it hopefully.