Installing the cap block on the retaining wall

The day started out with a little excitement.  On Monday the semi feral cat that recently had 7 kitties, had an appointment for a spaying.  R knew he would never get her back into the kitty hauler after last week's vet trip for shots.  So Sunday he didn't feed her during the day and then placed her food in a live trap.  He figured if he had to he would just take the live trap with cat to the vet.

On Monday when R got up at 7AM, the cat was sitting right next to the live trap and all the food was gone.  We still haven't figured out how Ms. Houdini Kitty was able to pull off that trick.  So we were back to the drawing board on how we would get her to the vet.

So this morning R was on the deck petting the kitty when he realized that the kitty hauler was right there and open and the kitty wasn't paying much attention to what was going on.  So with one hand he grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and the other hand he grabbed her rear hips lifting her up and dropping her in the hauler before she knew what hit her.  R was scratched and peed on but the kitty is at the vet spending the night and tomorrow will get her procedure.

R said she was LOUD at the vet. Luckily they said that they would give her a little something to relax her. We are just pleased that she is there.

So when R got back home he had to take a shower and clean his scratch marks AND relax a bit before he started working on the shingles.  I guess maybe the vet should have given R something to relax him.  It was a traumatic morning for both the cat and R.

It was a hot one today and R had some difficult cuts that made it slow going.  I installed the cap blocks on the retaining wall.  We have several caulking guns of which we have one that we use just for adhesives like Liquid Nails.  The other guns we reserve for caulk and products that we can clean up with soap and water before it dries.

I left the tube of adhesive sit in the sun for 30 minutes or so to make sure it was soft and would easily come out of the tube.  I then cut off the end with a utility knife.  I like to cut it back far enough that I have a large opening so the adhesive can come out without a struggle.

Some fancy caulking guns come with a little pointed probe that folds out and can be used to pierce the foil inside the nozzle.  The caulking gun that I was using was an inexpensive one so I just used a long nail.  Make sure you poke through the foil several times.

I started with the cap block that was right against the barn foundation.  I used three or four good dollops of adhesive.  The adhesive doesn't set up right away so you have some time to position it correctly.  I then moved on to the next one and so on.  I had two cap blocks that set slightly lower than the others so I just added a little extra adhesive to raise it up a bit.

Tomorrow I will back fill behind the wall.  We also decided to add one more block at the end of the retaining wall.  We already have an extra cap block so we just need to buy two more retaining blocks. R has been saying all along that it needed one more block so I guess he was right.

I then went back to scraping the driveway.  I am so close to being done.  Just the center portion is left but that area is the thickest.  Those sod pieces can be heavy so I have to cut them into small 6 inch squares.  The loose dirt was picked up and I used it to fill two holes in the front yard.

As I was leveling the dirt in preparation for some grass seed I noticed a cool breeze and thought ahhhhhhhhhhhhh.  That was until I looked up.  A big storm was coming fast.  We had all of about three minutes to pick up everything before it poured.