Let the painting begin

Let the painting begin until it rains yet again.

The only thing that keeps me from screaming about the lack of painting is that I am not alone.  Many of my fellow Midwestern bloggers are also facing the challenges of rain and the declining temperatures and daylight hours.

Today I actually was able to paint some trim with a top coat of Ultra White in semi gloss and painted a few shingles with a top coat of Anonymous in a satin finish.

My painting layout might look odd and it is but I have to paint what I can from the ladder before I move the ladder which is heavy and awkward to move.  The bay window is very difficult to paint because of the curve which makes for odd ladder placement that requires me to place the ladder on already painted areas.  Because of this I have to wait a day or so for the paint to cure before I place the ladder on top of recently painted trim.

I really like painting the grey color because it goes on so nicely after the tediousness of priming. Once the primer coat is on the shingle it is much easier to paint the top coat because the shingle is smoother so the pant flows nicely.

R was busy sanding and removing old glazing from the storm windows while I painted today.  I will paint the storm windows indoors tomorrow if it does indeed rain as is predicted.

Several days ago, I had to relinquish my paint brush to R so he could prime around the area where the yellow jackets have been hanging out.  I usually don't let R paint.  He's a dabber and I am picky about my painting but since I cannot afford to risk getting stung, I handed over my paint brush.

R put on his beekeeping garb and painted away.

When he was done priming he handed me the brush.  He was so proud because I never let him paint. I had to throw the brush away.  He had paint ALL over the handle and the bristles were bent and broken and sticking out all over the place.  It was a sticky mess. So today I painted as close as I could get to the yellow jackets and when the time comes to paint the final coat, I will don the beekeeping jacket and paint the shingles myself.

I only have half of the white trim painted with the top coat but I like the contrast of the white and grey.

On the beekeeping front....we had a scare the other day.  There were about 10 dead bees laying on the opening of the hive.  Upon closer inspection they were just small exoskeletons and we observed the worker bees pull them out of the hive and fly away with them (usually a couple of feet away) and then come back.  We think that during the several days of rain that the bees just did a little house keeping during that time.  R did remove the roof to look in and said the hive is full of bees and that they have already sealed the inner cover shut with propolis.