Once Upon a Tree-t

The giant shade tree in our backyard had to come down last week. There will be no more branches falling unexpectedly on our roof, and, hopefully, this will put an end to plumbing issues beneath our foundation. It was such a difficult (and expensive!!!) choice to make, but it had to be done. Nevertheless, there are many, many pleasant memories.

You couldn't even see the tree from the front yard when we first bought the house!

It was kind of fun but also sad to look up old house photos to remember our great source of shade.

our neighbors' cell phone shot from their window

And what a haven it was for wildlife...

my neighbors' cell phone shot through their window

Our neighbors set up a shaded chair in their backyard so Lizard could safely watch the tree come down.

The tree cutters happily provided several branches for the neighbor to cut up for camp firewood. The branches were set up along the neighbors' back fence to dry in the sun.

I would have loved to claim some of the thin slices from the trunk. I think they would have made great crafts. But I haven't had time to sew or crochet, so I let the crew chip everything the neighbors didn't take.

The entire process took about five hours. At the end of the project, the crew told us this was a very difficult tree to remove.

They went from the bottom up to remove branches.

The limbless tree itself was leveled from the top down in small segments.

Birds were having a fit while the tree was coming down. I suspect there may have been a nest somewhere in all the debris. However, the workers did not find one. Perhaps the birds were just complaining about human development the way we do...

We elected to have the stump drilled to make sure the roots don't continue to infringe upon the pipes below our house.

I knew before the job started a few plants might be lost. Landscaping bricks were moved. Drainage pipes were removed. I didn't realize flagstone would be broken. All water beneath the bridge now; nothing I can do but clean and repair. And replant. Resulting sawdust is going to take a good long while for us to collect and move.

I was asked if I want to keep the sawdust. We live on clay, which is part of the problem with our foundation. Some of the terracing I've done during the last four years has already begun to slide down the slope. Sawdust will be a very welcome addition to the soil. It won't completely transform the clay, but it can add temporary stability.

Autumn clean-up in our yard will be easier without this mammoth leaf producer. But autumn also will be much less colorful in our backyard.

Our weather has been hotter than Hades, but we got a brief break from the high 90s, and I replaced the relocated bricks and replanted them with mature flowers I bought just in case I might need to start over.

It's going to take time, patience and effort, but soon, my backyard will be a wildlife haven and a (hopefully shaded) peaceful place for us to enjoy once again. (We have trellis ideas on the drawing board now. I'm thinking blue and purple clematis...)

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Shingles

Yes, we were vaccinated nearly a year ago, and no, we do not have any symptoms. We do, however, have new shingles on our old roof, and oh, are they pretty!

We've had drive-by companies hammering us to let them replace our roof for about three or four years now. We've had a few good hail storms, and our home is celebrating its vicenary anniversary this year. Fun word, right??? Did you catch the name of my snowflake yesterday???

Our roof didn't quite have enough damage. Until after last December's windstorms. Particularly the one that decimated an entire community about 70 miles north of our home.

That particular windstorm sounded like a train repeatedly hitting up against the side of our house. I thought I shot a movie of our shingles flapping in the wind, but I guess I got only stills. Seven businesses and 1,084 homes were lost in the Marshall fire. We got to keep our home, and for that, I am extremely grateful. But our roof was toast.

The whole process of getting a new roof has taken several months, with the insurance company and the contractor duking it out, plus the homeowner's association's approval process. We changed the color to match other yellow homes in our neighborhood, and the time it took to approve an approved color made us wonder if we'd accidentally checked off that we were building a skyscraper or putting in a petting zoo.

the original roof

It looked like we might get a pink roof when the materials were delivered!

Lizard had warned me I would need to wear earplugs while working from home on installation day. This was my first new roof ever. And boy, did Lizard ever get it right! I ended up apologizing to the neighbors for the early morning wake-up pounding. And we supplied much-appreciated ice cold water, Gatorade and Pepsi for the crew, who literally cooked atop our roof trying to beat the 95 degrees the thermometer hit just half an hour after they finished.

Oh, and our leaky and damaged gutter got replaced, too. We got rain for the first time in three months the next day. And the basement didn't flood!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!! And, now I can finish the rest of the rockwork below the downspout.

Now, it's done, and it feels like a whole new house. Who knew a new roof could make us feel like we bought a new home!

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Stairway Almost to Heaven

The wooden deck in our backyard had never been maintained when we bought our fixer-upper 15ish years ago. The previous owners also removed the hot tub the night before we closed on the house (giving us the opportunity to back out of the sale without a financial loss, had we wanted, but also leaving a huge hole in the deck). About a year later, I went through one of the deck stairs, so Lizard removed the deck, along with the help of our then current missionaries.

We had big plans! We were going to build a red rock slab staircase that would match the flagstone I intended to use on the portion of the backyard that wouldn't grow grass. I have begun the flagstone part of the project, but we never got the stairway built. I built a makeshift stair at the backdoor to keep from falling on my noggin when I water the garden.

I ripped more than one dress on the deck skeleton over the years. I really hated that thing. Except when it made a stable, dry sitting surface while shooting snowflakes...

I dismantled that makeshift stairway the day before we thought work on the new stairs would begin. The crew had to delay our work for a week. I worried I'd forget the bricks and boards were gone. So that sweet husband of mine made a couple of signs to remind me. I am married to the most wonderful man on the planet!

One slab of the front stairway has been sinking on one side the entire time we have lived in the house. Probably due in part to the hyacinths I planted in the rocks in front of it. But also because none of the homes in our neighborhood were built on amended soil. A foolish developer builds your house upon the clay...

The cracks in the front concrete have provided excellent shelter for snakes and mice, neither of which we care to house. The off-levelness of that one step really hampered Lizard every time we went out the front door. He hasn't been able to go out the backdoor for a couple of years now. It has been a very long time coming, but we finally got those stairs replaced last week.

The company we used sized everything to accommadate a wheelchair, in case we ever get to that point. We hope we don't, but it's good to know we are ready if it happens.

The night before the concrete was poured, I dreamed the squirrel scampered all the way across the back steps, leaving footprints. Not an hour after the pouring (while the crew poured three more like projects in our neighborhood to address similar clay foundation issues), our squirrel had to leave his Hollywood-style signature. He also must have dunked his tail. There were a couple of long, deep gouges. I'll bet he spent a good deal of time licking his tail for the next several hours!

The crew leveled it off when they returned, and I tried to keep an eye out for our curious critter so he couldn't repeat the feat. But he must have learned his lesson. The smoothing lasted.

Snow was in the forecast two days after the stairs had been poured. We didn't know if we'd actually get any snow because it's been so dry. I got to shovel 1.5 inches off my new stairs Friday morning! I was as excited for the snow as I am about the stairs!

Neighborhood mice apparently are excited, too. Less than one week into the new stairs, a mouse hole has appeared. I filled it in with red sand.

I won't be planting new hyacinths near the front stair, and I'm going to have to redo the little rock area there. I'm thinking about having a short brick wall built around the rock area and adding soil to cover up where the clay has settled away from the front porch. But that would involve watering in the long run because I'd want to plant beautiful things there. So I'll have a few months to think on that.

Meanwhile, the back doorway is going to need a little bit of TLC. The back stairs are ready for some new landscaping, too, but I was already working on that with red sand and flagstone. I just didn't know how far out the stairs would reach, so I had to wait until they were done. Now I might have to wait until our tiny stretch of winter turns back into autumn-like weather!

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