Freya was a bit nervous about the water (I think she thought it was a big bath). But after some encouragement - peanuts - and some forced cannon-balling with mommy she got the hang of it. Still not her favorite thing in world but I think she is growing to like it.

Lots more pictures here in the gallery.

It may seem fairly innocuous, but this little baby can produce a stream of highly pressurized water that can pulverize even rock, if your so inclined.  I was not, so we stuck with a wide angle nozzle for my fragile wood deck. So I got to spraying, and act which is a fairly decent upper arm workout due to the kickback on this thing.

The results are fairly remarkable:

As you can see, years of grim are now blasted away. Of course, you can do lots of other things with a power washer:

That’s an “M & C” with a heart if it’s difficult to see - the nozzle isn’t meant for fine detail work.  And no, I didn’t leave this engraved into the rust stains on the concrete. Carly preferred me to remove the stain all together.

You’ll notice of course that “Demon Plant” is doing fine. Also, we got our first roses of the season in:

Of course, I wasn’t the only one that thought power washing was like the best thing ever (be sure to click for bigger views):

So all in all, it was a successful mission. Staining will proceed in one week. You can see the results of the power wash below:

Freya was worn out, and the dirtiest she has ever been (but happy)!

Some final pics!

Over and out for now.

1) I require more tools.

2) I would greatly like an indentured servant in the form of a young genetically related lad or lass (any daughter of mine won’t be escaping yard duty).

3) The tree overlooking my deck is not really a tree, shrub, bush, or vine… It is really some demonic incarnation from the deep circles of the underworld.

This thing is pretty enough to look at in the summer, if not a little overgrown. So a little hedging was in order. Yeah, my mistake thinking this would be easy. The infernal plant not only has thorns and slightly toxic sap, but its bark and appendages are like tentacles. They cling to everything and refuse to bend, break, or yield in any fashion. It’s like having thousands of slightly flexible and razor edged dowel rods twisting in some maddening pattern. I was not pleased with the amount of damage I took trying to tame this thing. The worst part is he clean-up. You can’t sack this stuff! It shreds triple layer heavy duty lawn bags - went through eight of them. You see this:

This is not good. This stuff is the reason jungle travel cannot be accomplished with any degree of ease and it lives in my freaking backyard!

Freya desperately wanted to assist me, but alas she would have to observe from her window command post. And whine.

My weapon of choice for this endeavor. $45 at Lowes and well spent. Ash might not be proud, but it is suitable for the task. (more…)

In other news, the puppy slept up stairs with us for the first time last night. I think she is a little confused but sure was happy to see us in the morning still.

My Feeling was by far my most dominant at 88%
iNtuitive was also strong at 66%

Judging was expressed at 22% (meaning I prefer using Feeling over Intuition, which matches above).

And I have a slight Extrovert tendency at 11%. This means I can switch between extrovert and introvert as required apparently (nifty).

According to the profile sheet, both management and computer programmer are on the list of ideal fits for my type (cool!).

I find it pretty cool that my functional are highly expressed (so my way of thinking and feeling is pretty much solid) while my approach is more mutable.

Oh yes, and after looking up my types online I apparent experience the world psychologically similarly to the following famous people: Pope John Paul II, Sean Connery, Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama, James Garner, Gene Hackman, Craig T. Nelson, Johnny Depp, Oprah Winfrey, Peyton Manning, Matthew McConaughey, Nick Nolte, Tony Blair, and oh yes, and David - King of Israel.