Survey and Rot

Finally had the survey done. The cost makes me want to cry a little bit-- a LOT of money to spend just determining where the corners and edges are. But now we can start the fence, after which we can start the garden. So that's good. Plus they're going to give us neat maps and things, which could be useful, or at least interesting.

The back of the property is just where we thought, thank heavens. (That's the side bordered by neighbors who are not so very friendly. We were told that our side went straight up to their little concrete retaining wall, and it does, within a few inches.) One side is further towards our other neighbors' house than we figured; that might be an awkward conversation later on... "hey, it turns out we own more of that side yard between our houses than we all thought!" But they're the cool neighbors with the band and the friendly dogs, (and only occasionally have lecherous, inappropriate house guests), and the only thing they use that side yard for is to access their AC unit. So that should all be OK. There's a lot more road-clearance than we had guessed (meaning that a lot more of "our property" belongs to the city)... something Don wants to ignore now. It seems he was worried about fencing accuracy on the two neighbor-bordered sides but not the two city-street sides, which seems backwards to me because you can talk to or negotiate with neighbors but not so much with the city, especially when there are power line right-of-ways involved. Not to mention that our two "pretty" fences (i.e. the expensive, permanent ones) are going on the street sides, while the backsides are just going to have utilitarian wire fencing, to keep our animals in and other animals out. I told Don that I'm willing to let him make the call about where the fence is going, on the condition that should we ever have to move them, I get complete I-told-you-so rights, including bringing it up every year for the rest of our lives. He remains unfazed, says that pine tree is OURS no matter where the flags are.

Don is working to fix the drainage problem on the north side of the house and repair the damage (inside and out) that it's caused. We finally had a chance to really see the interior water damage, and this project has shot to the top of the priority list, since we really shouldn't rent the place until it's fixed. I didn't catch everything but it involves replacing the sill (?), building a retaining wall to hold soil away from the side of the house, some kind of drainage system, replacing the drywall inside, and (eventually) replacing the gutters, since they've been spilling water on that unfortunate spot all the time.

Pine Tree

This is the best tree on our property. Okay, there are only three; one of them is the dying, trunk-only maple, the other is an overgrown dogwood. But this pine is quite nice, all things considered. I just want to limb it up a bit, so that we can create a garden area beneath it; we'll remove the lower branches up to maybe four or five feet from the ground. That way we'll be able to run our four-foot boundary fence around it since it's on the corner of our lot, and plant some things beneath it that would enjoy the pine-needled soil below the canopy: azealeas, blueberries.

World, don't punish me for writing this out loud, but this should be a fairly easy project. We're just going to get the Tree Dude to trim the branches and run them through his chipper-shredder. Easy-peasy.

Sad, old Maple

This is our maple tree. See the power lines in the background? All of the branches have been cut from the tree at some point in the past, I'm assuming because they got in the way of the power lines. It's mostly just trunk. This poor tree has been struggling along without branches as best it can, but it's been dying since we moved here two years ago. (The dead limbs crashing to the ground are a little hint that all is not well with the tree, just in case the startling lack of a canopy wasn't enough.) We've decided to take it down, before it dies the rest of the way and falls on the house.

Thankfully, Mr.-we-can-do-it-all-ourselves has agreed to have a professional remove the tree, rather than nominating himself a Darwin Award. I hope to get a lot of firewood and/or shredded wood out of the tree to use as mulch. Don thinks that stacking firewood before we have either a fireplace or a wood-burning stove is "putting the cart before the horse" (his exact words), but the wood would have to age anyway, so why not? Why throw it away, then pay for what we could have had for free?

From a practical standpoint it makes more sense to do it right away, and replant the area with a small tree this fall or next spring, than to wait for the maple to finish dying. And since I want a fruit tree, and the sooner we plant, the sooner we get peaches... Still, it sucks to cut down a tree, especially one as old as this one.