YA has lots of opinions about the house and yard. Granted, she does do quite a bit of work on both, but the bottom line is that I’m still doing a good 80%. So when she gets a bee in her bonnet, I don’t always jump to attention.
She’s been nagging me for about three years to get rid of the tree in the front of house. To her credit, it’s in awful shape, and has gotten tall enough that it pretty much blocks all the sunlight to the front porch and some of my room as well. But I don’t want to have a whole bunch of projects going at once (actually, this drives me to distraction) so I’ve been putting her off. For two years I was able to use the “not until the front porch is done” knowing full well that the last couple of steps were hers. Unfortunately she did finally finish her little bits and now I can no longer use the excuse.
Smart people would have hired a tree guy, but I think the last 20 years have shown that we don’t always have smart people at our house. So we purchased a new chainsaw (the old one died last summer) and got to work yesterday. For the most part, it went well but as always happens with a big job, it’s much bigger than we thought. As you can see from the photo below, we still have a chunk to go but after 7 hours, both of us were really running out of steam so we decided to call it a day and go to Dairy Queen.
The good news is that YA and I are truly aligned when it comes to how we like to get things done. We like to clean up as we go – neither of us likes a big mess at the end. So each big branch that came down, we chopped it up, filling yard bags and making bundles of little logs and branches. So as we were getting worn out, we didn’t have a massive amount of clean up to do. The header photo is what’s on the boulevard for yesterday’s work.
The biggest issue now is finding time to tackle the rest of the job, since the weekend is over and YA has to work this week. I can work on the ground level and maybe even do a bit of cutting back from the roof outside my bedroom, but the actual cutting of that last two branches will take both of us. And probably some ropes and rakes to try to get the branches to fall where we want them to. I’ve had experience with this part going wrong in the past, so I don’t want to attempt it alone. YA thinks she can get an afternoon off in a couple of days. Fingers crossed.
What was the last project that really took it out of you?
Trail Baboon 
Deep cleaning the bathroom yesterday.
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This is on my list as well. A friend of mine is coming from out of town and staying three nights next week. So the next three or four days they’re gonna definitely be like Swedish death cleaning around here.
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I think that’s my next book… I keep hearing about it.
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I built a roughly 12×12 patio off our porch some 20 years ago. Sand base with bricks in a herringbone (?) pattern. Soil was 100% clay about 1 inch below the topsoil, so leveling the clay with one of those sod scraper things, and then a shovel, was exhausting. But the patio still looks good and seems level after all these years.
Other than that, my annual solo canoe trips are projects that “really take it out of me” every time. Schlepping two 50-60 lb. loads across sometimes long, always treacherous and rough portages several times in a day is definitely a young person’s game. Yet I can’t resist the self-abuse (I guess).
Chris in Owatonna
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Clearing the fern bed of thistles and bind weed was sort of exhausting yesterday, and after that I made Carpathian meat cakes and a skillet feta, chickpea and spinach pie topped with crumpled phyllo. We will eat them all week, so no cooking, except we found a recipe for flour tortillas I am making tonight to accompany some nice salsa I made last week. Husband will plant potatoes tonight.
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Rise and Shine,Baboons,
I will also write about a tree removal. Last August, during the State Fair, there were several fearsome wind and rain storms that did damage. One of the storms split our Silver Maple tree at the south end of our house. About a third of the tree landed in the back yard, covering about half of it. So, of course, the tree had to come down. About five years ago I wrote about the frustration of dealing with the adjoining neighbor building a fence on his property that leans against this tree. We asked him to put the fence away from the tree rather than against it, and to build a shorter fence.. He chose to do it his way without any neighborly skills.
Actually taking the tree out was pretty straightforward. However, coping with our neighbor to the south has been exhausting, emotionally taking it all out of me. We hired the same tree service that we have used before–the guy does great work (Shout out to Scott Bakkelund, from Waconia). Because this tree is on a slope, the tree service had to access the neighbor’s yard to take out the tree top. I took the family a gift certificate to a local restaurant to thank them for the access. Scott, the Swedish Tree Guy, then asked permission to bring a crane in during the winter freeze to lift out the tree trunk which leans against the fence. The guy agreed. So when the freeze came, the neighbor refused to give him access, after agreeing to do so in the autumn.
So there sits the tree trunk, which Scott cannot get out of there easily because it is on a slope and the neighbor built the fence too close. This neighbor, who we refer to only as The A**h***, is a pain. And he has to look at the tree trunk. We cannot see it unless we go the south end of the house. So far we are $4K into the tree removal and all is stalled out while Scott tries to find a crane big enough to lift up the tree trunk over the houses and the fence.
Whaddya do with a neighbor like this? I guess just let him look at the tree trunk. But he just takes it all out of me. Really, he is someone who should live out in the country on 50 acres so he never has to deal with anyone. I am sure at some point he will complain to the city, then we will need to ask for city assistance in getting access.
To Be Continued in the next episode….
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Sigh… what does he get out of being this way?
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All I can come up with is that it gives him a sense of control. But working with him or living with him has to be difficult given his nature.
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Probably the biggest project in the last few years was the expanded stairs I built to replace a simple staircase I had cobbled together when I (with the help of a friend) had expanded a window on the back of the house into a doorway. I wanted broad enough platforms that one could stand back to open the door, something the temporary steps had not allowed, and I wanted a stairway that could lead both to the back yard and also to the brick patio.
The trickiest part was that I was building it by myself, so I had to figure out procedures that would allow me to level it and put it together unassisted. Here’s what the final result looks like:
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Very nice. Professional looking.
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That’s beautiful! When did you finish this, Bill?
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During Covid.
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Was it easy to insert this photo, Bill? (Would it be easy for me?…)
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It was easy for me because I could upload the photo to my Flickr account, which serves as an image host, giving my image a unique web address. If you wished to do the same you would need to sign on to an image hosting site (there are many), upload your image, copy the address of that image and paste it into your comment on the Trail.
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Thanks – figured it was something like that… I may recall Linda has done it from FB.
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I use Flickr for images too.
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My next big project coming whenever is moving to wherever.
Clyde
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Uff duh. At sixes and sevens leaves my writing in a mess.
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It’s been a while since we tackled anything huge besides moving. There was the Screen Porch
– https://trailbaboon.com/2012/07/07/the-screen-porch/ , but I wasn’t as involved with that…
However, decades ago, Husband and I stripped the woodwork in the front room of our former Winona house – which had an odd layout, and had been owned by some lumber “baron”. The foyer had five doorways (a couple of them double-size), and a double window. We spent an entire winter listening to Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors, Abba, etc. while we worked – there are photos of even 3-year-old Joel working with his kid-size work gloves… It was finally done in spring, and it looked great.
Then we just had to replace the black-&-gold flocked wallpaper, and were good to go.
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Our projects take much longer as we have aged. This weekend we plan to put down soaker hoses and plant the garden. What would take one day in the past now takes three.
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This current oversight of the Milford, Ohio Middle School, is taking a toll on me. The flooring crews are doing excellent work but my feet are hurting from 10,000 steps in a few morning hours. Getting up at 4 AM isn’t helpful.
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Hang in there ol’ man
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The project that I always find exhausting is the family garage sale. We usually have one every couple of years. There are a number of people pitching in, fortunately, but I am never organized far enough in advance, and there are so many little decisions to be made, things to pack and unpack and clean and fix and price and display, and then when the sale is over the leftovers must be dealt with.
The whole process makes my brain tired.
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Holland and Zeeland, Michigan, which vote rather solidly red whenever possible, each has its own Bureau of Public works that owns electric generation & distribution, waterworks, sewerage and now (in Holland) the broadband network. That’s kind of “bolshie” for some folk roundabouts. In Holland there’s also a garage-full of tools owned by a community association which anyone can borrow. That’s even MORE bolshie, ain’t it. Anyway, late in March I began moving and setting the collection up in a garage across town. The process has almost done me in. However, should you need to borrow a chain saw, or a screwdriver, come and see me.
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