Do It Myself

     Thanks to YouTube, I'm calling myself a trained electrician.  Oh, all right.  I'm just an apprentice.  Oh, all right.  I removed and replaced a couple of exterior light fixtures.  That might seem insignificant to most do-it-yourselfers, but it's a big deal to me because I am afraid of electricity.  I still have awesome respect for 120V, 60 Hz alternating current, but after today's successful experience, I no longer cling to my unreasonable fear.
     I didn't take pictures during the repair because I had enough to do with staying balanced on the ladder and hanging onto the fixtures while I untwisted and re-twisted small parts and tried to keep from dropping my tools.
     It all started this past February when I noticed that one garage light was out.  A simple bulb change, I thought.  It turns out that the socket was broken.  It spun around and around, and I couldn't get the bulb out.  It was too cold to be outside fartin' around with light fixtures.  My phobia told me that I would burn the house down if I operated the garage lights, so I have not flipped the switch for four months.
     Four months of googling told me that sockets in fixtures can be replaced sometimes.  I decided that I wouldn't take that route.  Googling (and trips to Lowe's) also told me that most light fixtures are ugly, old things.  The one hanging from the siding for the last eleven years suited me better than anything more up-to-date.  When I found identical fixtures on the Home Depot website, I couldn't put off this repair any longer.  I ordered two new fixtures, knowing that the remaining original fixture would fail if I got cocky and replaced just the faulty one.

Here's how you change out fixtures:

1. Turn off the electricity.  I took a chance on flipping the breaker marked, "Front Porch/Foyer," and found that the circuit also included the front, exterior garage lights.  Off to a good start.

2.  Gather your tools - pliers, screw drivers, electrical tape, and caulk.  A small wrench for taking the exterior, decorative nuts off and on is easier than using pliers.   

3.  Unscrew the nuts on the outside of the fixture and pull it away from the wall.  In a perfect world, you can get your ladder up close enough to sit the fixture on the top of the ladder.  It's like having an extra set of hands.  Today, I had this perfect positioning.

4.  Pull the wiring out of the electrical box and unscrew the wire nuts (call them marettes if you really want to impress other amateurs).  At this point, I found loads of spider webs in the box, so I got an old paint brush and brushed out all the debris.  Take note of the wires.  The black wire carries the electricity to the fixture and is known as the hot wire.  The white wire is a neutral wire.  The bare wire is the ground wire which carries electricity back to the panel, then outside to a rod buried in the ground.  Sometimes a ground wire has green plastic insulation.  After taking apart all the connections, set your old fixture aside.

5.  Unscrew the nasty, old mounting bracket and replace it with the new bracket that you get with the new fixture.  Remember to level the bracket so your new fixture is level.  Now, set your new fixture on the top of the ladder.

6.  Re-attach the wires coming from the box to the matching wire coming from the new fixture - black to black, white to white, ground to ground.  I don't know if the order of attachment matters.  The instructions that came with my fixture said to attach the black wires first, so that is what I did.  You line up the black wires with their bare wire ends even, pop on a wire nut and twist it up tight.  Also, wrap electrical tape around the wire nut and wire ends.  This keeps out moisture and secures the join.  Next, I attached the white wires.   Last, I attached the copper ground wires.  Ground wires are screwed down under ground screws within the box and on the mounting bracket.  You'll see these screws because they have blue heads.  Wrap the ground wire under the screw heads and tighten down the screws before joining with the wire nuts.  Push all the wires neatly into the box.

7.  Lift the new fixture, line up the holes in the front plate of the fixture, and slide it on to the two mounting screws that protrude forward from the mounting bracket.  The mounting screws should protrude 1/4 inch on the outside of the fixture.  If they protrude more than 1/4 inch, you'll have to adjust them.  Screw on the mounting nuts so that they tightly hold the fixture to the wall.  If the fixture is not nice and tight, you will have to remove the fixture as many times as it takes to get the mounting screws in just the right position to hold the fixture to the wall properly.  This is probably the most difficult part of this repair.

8.  Run a bead of 100% silicon outdoor caulk across the top and 2/3 of the way down each side of the fixture base.  That will keep water from getting inside in just about all circumstances.  If water does get inside or if moisture accumulates, leaving the bottom uncaulked allows for drainage or evaporation.

New light ... same as the old light.

Working Lights on Both Sides

   

Girl's Crochet Poncho

     Ponchos were all the rage in the late 1960s and early 1970s.  They made a comeback in the 2000s.  After struggling through the "Pay Attention Shawl," a poncho seemed like an easy project.

I found a few of these in the yarn stash.  I thought, My, that looks like an exotic bird.

Darn tootin', it did.  That designer at Bernat® must have been inspired by the Rainbow Lorikeet, a bird that lives in the Australian rain forest.

 

I'm sending this colorful creation to the girl who lives down the street.  A little birdie told me it was her birthday. 

Change Is Good

     I haven't had a haircut since February.  I looked like this back then:

     I was lovin' my gray hair and longer tresses. After almost four months of hair neglect, I was itching for a new look.  I bought a box of the world's lightest ash blonde and went back to coloring.  Today, I got an illegal haircut. 

 

Nature Abounds

     First it was turtles; now it's rabbits.  Without all the cars squashing critters trying to cross the road, my back yard is overrun with wildlife.  Mardi alerted me to the bunnies.

Did Mardi want to play or eat a snack?  

I'm sure this little guy was frightened.  The bunny must have fallen into the crawl space access well.

I turned and found this one cowering in the corner of the foundation.

     I shooed one rabbit into a bucket and took it to the woods next to the house.  The other one was more energetic, and it leaped out of the bucket.  Mardi gave chase.  I managed to get ahead of Mardi and herd this cottontail to a place where it could squeeze through a gap under the fence.  From there it disappeared under some shrubs.
     A little later, I spied an adult rabbit on patrol.  It investigated under the shrubs and went into the woods.  Since I don't normally see rabbits out in plain sight during the middle of the day*, I'm assuming Mama was hunting her wayward offspring.

*What I learned about rabbits:  Rabbits are crepuscular creatures.  That means they are active at dawn and dusk and sleep most other hours of the day.  People think rabbits are nocturnal, but that is not the case.