Stumped

Day 1 of the landscapers' work... they dropped off a tractor to get the big stump out of the backyard from the tree we cut down.

We now get to move on to getting the walkways put in!

Storm Trouble

Although we were able to get the half-dead tree down before the storm arrived on March 2nd, we ran into trouble from the pine trees.

The first hit was a big limb that came down on the Well House roof.  Here's a photo from during the storm...

The roof on the building is 100 years old and slate.  Not going to be fun to get that replaced! 

Here's a photo of it from behind the Well House... you can see the pointy branch on the pine tree, where the limb broke off.

The next hit was a huge pine tree that was behind the big barn.  It sideswiped the building- luckily not a direct hit, but it did knock it off kilter.

Another storm was scheduled to be coming through (will spring ever arrive?!?), so we had to quickly get the hole in the roof covered so it doesn't mess up the recently finished gym!

We have our work cut out for us... weekends full of chopping those trees up and trying to schedule the insurance guy, roofer, and a structural engineer.  

This was not a part of our spring plans!

Clearing the Way

I've got a bit of catching up to do!
Before the landscaper could begin work, we needed to take care of a few things back there.  So, I bring you back to February...

Unfortunately, there was a tree that needed to come down.  It was rotted on one side, and we had been trying to get it healthy with trimming it over the past few years, but it was too far gone.

I was holding my breath as it came down, but Mike's gotten quite good at landing it right where he likes.  He took the rest of the afternoon to chop it up.  That will be good firewood for next year.

The forecast had a Nor'Easter coming in this week, so we really wanted to get the tree down and cleaned up- mission accomplished!

Timber- taking down a dead tree

There's been a pine tree next to the Well House that we've been keeping our eyes on.  At least half of it's branches were dead, and the others weren't looking so great either.

You can kind of see a part of it on the left side of this old photo- although you can't see the whole thing (and it's half-deadness), you can see how close it is to the well house roof.

We were worried that if it fell down, it would damage the slate roof (that would be an unneeded expense!)  But if it was able to be saved, we wanted to keep it.  So, we trimmed it up, and spent two years watching & waiting for it to perk up.  We've finally decided it was time to take it down.

Mike started this while I was at work, and forgot to take a before photo... so that's why we have the old photo above!

When I arrived home (and ran to get the camera), it was already down...

I was relieved that Mike remembered to move the bird bath & iron bench that we had out there.
The top of the tree came mighty close to the picket fence!

Next spring we'll work on shaping up the flower beds around there.  I think I'd like to put window boxes on the four windows, or at least the two in front.

Catching Up- May/June 2014

Wow- two months since my last post!  Life's been hectic lately... and the blog fell to the side for a bit.
I hope that I can get back into a rountine with it!

Here are some random things we've had happening with the house...

Mike built doors for the closets under eaves of the media room.

They had to be custom built, since the openings were an odd size.

I've primed them, Mike got hinges and hung them, and now I need to paint them.

We also bought the hardware- just a basic satin nickle knob for each.




I also added this shelf up there... I'm still fussing with what goes on the shelves.  For now it's photo albums, blankets, a couple of old Atari games, and empty buckets/storage bins.






I put together these mason jars of old thread spools and buttons.  They'll look great in a laundry room (some day!)








The fruit trees that we planted last year are doing good!
We lost one of them, so replaced it with a new nectarine tree.

Most exciting is that the peach tree has three peaches on it!  They are rather tiny, but a good start!!!!

Other items...
We've been moving forward with the plans for the extension.  Of course, after living in the house for a few years and mulling over the existing drawings, we now want to change some things.  I'll post about that once we've met with the architect again.

A Little Thunderstorm?!?

Last Monday I came home after work to find the baby goats loose in the driveway... uh-oh, that's not good!

Turns out there was a 15 minute thunderstorm that wreaked havoc on our yard- we lost a total of 5 trees (almost as bad as Hurricane Sandy!  But thankfully, this time we only lost power for 1 day!)

A big walnut tree that was in the goat yard completely uprooted.  Thank goodness the goats (and chickens) weren't hurt, and it didn't fall on the barn.

But it did take down the fence...

Our older goat stayed in the yard, but the little guys thought it was party time & climbed the tree right over the fence!

Then I turned around and saw half a pine tree had gone down across the back driveway entrance...

That one broke two sections of the white picket fence.  

(Luckily it just fell short of the bigger privacy fence!)

After checking the rest of the property, we found three more trees down in the back.  

Happily, two of those fell onto the brush pile anyway! 

<looking for a silver lining>

Just when we thought we had the yard in pretty good shape... 

(we had literally just been saying this on Sunday!)  

Our biggest concern that night was finding a place to put the goats.  We moved their stuff over to the horse barn, and put them in one of the stalls.  They were NOT happy (they didn't have free access to the outside from there) but at least they were safe.

Each afternoon, we let the goats out for "play time", while Mike was cutting up the tree & fixing the goat yard fence.  Definitely not how we had planned to spend our evenings last week!

Next we tackled the tree across the driveway.  I didn't realize how much we used both driveway entrances until this one was blocked!

The rest of the trees are going to take a while, but at least the most disruptive stuff is cleaned up!

Catching Up- April 2013

Here are some random updates made around the house...

I once again swapped out the photographs in the downstairs hallway.  This is the third swap after my original pics and then my St. Pat's selection.  I added another tulip, and brought back the original tulip and the hydrangea.

I love the bright colors for spring!
Here's a shot of them from coming down the stairs...

It's weird how the wall color looks brown-gray in some light, and blue-gray in other.
It's really somewhere in between!

The Picking Garden is slowly coming along... All of the weeds have been removed.
As you can see by the toys left behind, the kids helped with that!

Our next step is to add topsoil (we have a big pile on the back of the property) & roto-till it.

I updated the tree planting post, to add the specific types of apple, peach and cherry trees.
When we went out to buy the second apple tree that we needed for pollination, our oldest asked for  some plum trees.  Why not?  It needed a pollinator too, so we came home with three:
A Gala Semi-Dwarf Apple Tree
A Methley Plum Tree
A Burbank Seim-Dwarf Plum Tree

We planted these back in the same "orchard" area we have going.

Planting New Trees

Last weekend, we bought six new trees!
We planted a Black Tartan Cherry Tree, an Elberta Semi-Dwarf Peach Tree, and a Red Delicious Apple Tree between the two barns...

It's a sunny area (all three require 6+ hours of full sun), 

& we hope they'll eventually provide some shade for the goat yard.

Mike put stakes & chicken wire around them to prevent the deer from eating before they get established.  

We have to pick up one more apple tree, since it's needed for pollination.  The tag on the tree gives a list of compatible varieties that we can plant.

We also picked up three Leyland Cypress trees...
We planted two of them up on the far side of the back driveway.  The hope is that they'll grow big and block the backyard a bit.  These too require full sun.










The third Leyland Cypress is planted in front of the long privacy fence in the side yard.  This section of the yard is slowly coming along.  You can see a hint of yellow to in the Forsythia bushes on the right.  We want to do a bit of landscaping around our sign.

Close up of Leyland Cypress branch.  These will be pretty to decorate with for the holidays!

Hurricane Sandy- surveying the damage

We feel very thankful that we are all safe and were very fortunate that the house did not sustain any damage from Hurricane Sandy.  We're still without power, heat and water... fingers crossed that it comes back soon!  Thank goodness for the fireplace!

Reheating pizza in the fireplace
(Without power, we had time to get a little creative!)

We lost about 7 trees in the yard, and damage to others.  The trampoline also went flying, and the privacy fence is leaning a bit, but that's about the extent of the damage.  We were VERY lucky!

This tree was one of our favorites- it stood in the middle of the field.
I don't know if we'll be able to save the part that's still standing.

Lots more trees down on the side property line.
Luckily, many of these were already dead & slated to come down.

The trampoline had been on the opposite side of the car in the background!
Must have flown right over!

Three shutters flew off & broke

Now the clean-up begins!

Timber!

Lots of tree cutting going on...

See all the stumps?
Mike's gotten about 10 of the dead pine trees down from the back of our yard.

This is the side yard, looking towards the road.
(For point of reference, the edge of the barn is in the left of the photo)

Since they're all pine, we won't be burning them in the fireplace.
So, for now they're in a pile at the very back of our property.
Once all the dead trees are down, we'll be renting a chipper with our neighbor, who also has some a brush pile to get rid of.

<--- Here's the rest of them... still about 10 to go!

Getting rid of all the stumps will be phase two.

I have to say, Mike's gotten quite good at wielding the saw...
-Last month, he helped his brother with two trees (in exchange for help with the barn doors)
-This past weekend, he cut up a HUGE tree at my parents' house that had come down in a storm.  It was a tree with 4 trunks, and all landed on top of each other.  Wish we had a before photo- it was crazy!






SO many dead trees: