Home and Yard Improvements

As most of you know we, Grant and Pat Howlett, have decided to go on another mission and have just completed all the papers and interviews to do so. Our daughter Emma and her husband John Oberting have agreed to stay in our home again, while we are gone. In order to leave our home in good condition, we have decided to fix several things inside and outside.

Grant is pointing to our old, rundown fence and Pat is standing behind him.

Our chain link fence around our whole back yard was over 25 years old and falling down, so Grant and John took it upon themselves to take out the old fence, cemented posts and all, then replace it.


We also decided to put a new very sturdy shed in our back yard for extra permanent storage, and Grant wanted make sure there was good drainage underneath the shed, so the floor would not be damaged by any rain water.

Our daughter, Emma Oberting is at left, her husband John is on the ground checking out the measurements of a stone for the shed placement and Grant is adjusting the stone better.

A drainage field was dug and we loaded all the many rocks we had collected in the yard over the years, plus we had some more rocks hauled in to fill the drain field under the whole shed.
We were able to buy a prebuilt shed made by an Amish company. It is very well built and sturdy.

Grant is helping the Amish delivery man to place the new shed.

While Grant was digging the drainage area he mistakenly cut our buried internet cable and had to get that redone. Thankfully they didn’t charge us for the reconnection.

Here is a photo of the finished shed which Grant and John Oberting painted.

The fence along the road side had been taken out with a lot of work to get all the lilac bush stumps and cemented fence posts out. Grant built a special derrick to hold a “come-along” tool to help pull out the old posts. He used a pick ax to hack out all the stumps along the back road side of our house.

Our daughter Emma is helping place the chain for the "come-along" to use with Grant's excellent home built derrick in pulling out the tree stumps and the old cemented fence posts.

What a lot of nearly backbreaking work and lots of sweating effort it took to complete the shed and fence projects. Because the fence on the street side was out, the company who built the shed was able to deliver it right into the yard from Chatterton road, on the back side of our property. Grant was so grateful that John, Emma, Chloe and Pat were able to help sometimes and he also got a bit of help from some members and the missionaries occasionally.


Elder Bowers, Elder Vakalahi, John Oberting and Grant are all helping to make and pour cement for some new fence posts, with an old cement mixer which our son Eric Howlett lent us to use.

One Saturday in October, while John and Grant were busy trying to get some fence posts out, Emma and Pat decided to cut off the many leafy bush branches growing in the fence along the east side of the yard between our house and the neighbor’s house. Pat and Emma each got loppers and “went to town” cutting off the branches and stacking them in a large pile. It was a messy and big job, but they were able to clear the bushes enough so the old rusty chain link fence could be taken down. A few days later first Emma and then Pat began breaking out in Poison Ivy rashes.


Here is a photo of our daughter Emma Oberting burning old wood in our outdoor fireplace. Notice the very bushy fence line behind. This is the brush that Emma and Pat cut out of the fence, and then got poison ivy from their work.

Those bushes they cleared seemed to have a lot of Poison Ivy mixed up in the bushes. Ugh! What an itchy mess. They both had to get steroid medication from the doctor to stop the rash. Later John sprayed the stack of branches with a special spray to kill all the plants, and then Grant burned the stack in our outside fireplace. Luckily he did not get any rash from it, perhaps because he used a long sleeved shirt and jacket, gloves and tried to protect himself from any effects. He breathed in some of the smoke, but perhaps he isn’t allergic to the bushes, since he did not get any rash from it. Hooray! However, Pat and Emma stayed very far away from that bush burning project.

Here to the left is Pat standing in front of our new fence with the shed, garage and house in background.


The next week we had a professional company come in and chop up the old bush stumps in the ground all along the old fence line on the east. It didn’t cost too much and the whole job was done in less than an hour. And to think Grant sweated and worked so hard for days on the street side of the fence to get those stumps out. Oh well. He got some great exercise from it. After the stump removal, it was a few more days to complete cementing all the new fence posts into the ground then put up the new fencing and secure it all around. It was a big job, but rewarding to see it all done with our yard looking so much better and opened up to the sunshine.

On November 11 we got four brand new windows put in the front side of the house. We have needed those windows for 15 years, but finally we were able to get it done.

At right you can see the front of our house with the new windows.

What a difference it makes with the looks of the house, not to mention the warmth and the security it adds to our home.
Along with the many rearranging and throwing out of a lot of stuff we have accumulated over the years, our little home is becoming much more enjoyable.