Adventures with Lino the Landlord

This is Lino the Landlord. We have had many adventures living in the apartment with Lino. From him creating a driveway "just for me" to his latest adventure below. Back in March, when Steph and Jeff were visiting, the entire yard was pulled up. Every blade of grass and weed pulled up to expose the underlying dirt. Lino then put weed killer all over and then proceeded to replant all the grass. He hooked up a chicken wire type device at an angle and beat the grass and dirt over the ground with a tennis racket-type tool. This took almost 2 months. From the end of February until he left right before Easter.

Well those darned weeds...they came back. So when he returned from Switzerland, where he lives the other half of his time, he got to work on the weeds. We would see him outside every now and then with a knife, like the one you used to put butter on your bread this morning, digging into the ground to get to the root of a circle of weeds. He picked random spots but all over the yard.

Our stories hit a new high for me and Evan though when we saw this.
Lino dug up the grass in a large part of the yard and is now burning the weeds away. Using a blowtorch. No one ever said he wasn't determined. He did this all over the yard slowly but surely until he was finished. This took weeks. He enlisted his visiting family members and grandchildren to pitch in and help.

Another Lino-ism happened when I was still in the hospital with Porter and Eli. Evan came home one afternoon from the hospital to find Lino gathering some equipment for a trip to the roof. Rope mainly. Evan's story when he came back to the hospital was so outlandish I really didn't believe him. "When I got home, Lino (70 years young) tied himself to a rope and walked off the balcony." Why you ask? To clean his gutters. I mean, what was Lino going to do without Evan holding the other end of the rope?