trees — Page 16

On the Rocks

March 19, 2012 at 10:58 am by Claudia

I find beauty in rocks…up to a point.

After several days of raking, digging, dumping and then finding even more rocks, they have lost their appeal. Right now, the swath of dirt that is my front yard has lots of piles like this one. I’ve resorted to dumping them in the woods.

Rocks are heavy, I might add.

A view of the front yard. This expanse of dirt also curves around the house and up to the septic tank:

Occasionally, I see some hardy tufts of grass. (Maybe a miracle will occur overnight and this grass will multiply!)

But mostly, I see dirt. And rocks. And more where that came from.

This is what’s left of my dear Weeping Willow. This photo is deceiving because the trunk is really massive.

Oh, yes, let’s add wood chips to the mess in the front yard and on the driveway.

And tire treads.

I have no idea how I am going to level all this and get it seeded, but I will. And I’ve finally managed to persuade Don to pitch in. I feel more of a sense of urgency than he does since I will be leaving for Hartford three weeks from today.

The garden? I haven’t even begun to start cleaning it up.

The weather has been glorious. Yesterday it was in the 70’s here and beautiful. And I take heart when I see signs of spring.

New growth on a rose bush.

A tulip showing its new leaves.

But I still can’t get used to this empty space in front of the house.

There should be a big old weeping willow shading the porch, hiding us from the traffic on the road, branches moving gracefully in the breeze.

Ah well. More rock work is on the docket for today.

The winner of a copy of The Dispatcher is comment number 18 – Zooperson. I don’t have your email address so please send me an email with your shipping address and I will forward it on to TLC Book Reviews.

A new scarf is in the Etsy shop in that shade of springy green. And there will be another one listed tomorrow in a lovely shade of taupe.

Have a wonderful Monday.

Is Your Gardening Thumb Green or Black?

March 3, 2012 at 11:24 am by Claudia

As I look out on a sea of melting snow and mud, I ponder how I’m going to reseed the now-missing front lawn. That’s something I really didn’t want to tackle, especially since I have to go out of town in April. Don will have to be in charge of watering and that doesn’t inspire me with confidence!

Thank goodness my garden was undisturbed in all the septic/tree removal mess. I find I am counting the days until I can work in the garden again and lose myself in planting and pruning and mulching. Nothing makes me happier than puttering in my garden.

I waited a long time to have my very own garden. I spent hours dreaming about it. When we rented in San Diego, I put in a garden, knowing that I would eventually have to leave it. Same thing for the cottage we rented for 4 years when we first moved out East. I took a strip of grass bordering the side of the cottage (with my landlord’s permission) and created a garden. When we moved here, I knew that I was finally going to have my own garden, not a temporary garden.

I am a fairly successful gardener who knows that she has much to learn. As all gardeners know, some plants thrive and others inexplicably fail. It’s a trial and error process – learning what your particular soil needs, where the shade is, how much sun a particular area gets.

There’s a lot of clay-like soil in these parts, so I’ve had to amend the soil in my garden beds. And now that the Willow has been removed, the pattern of sun and shade in my front yard will change, no doubt affecting my plants. Oh, but wait…that means I can plant more roses!

What about you? Do you dabble in gardening? Are you a passionate gardener? Or do you leave the gardening and planting to someone else? Is your gardening thumb green or black?

Do tell, my friends. And let’s all count the days until Spring planting season together.

I’m spending the weekend with some crochet and the new Lee Child thriller: The Affair. Just checked it out from my local library – thank goodness for inter-library loans!

If a Tree Falls….

February 29, 2012 at 9:06 am by Claudia

Do you ever post a photo and wonder if you’ve already used it in a previous post? That well might be the case with this one. (I used the Hipstamatic App on my iPhone for this neat, vintage look.) Since we are supposed to have 1 to 3 inches of snow today and freezing rain, I thought some cheery flowers were in order.

The tree is down. I left the house at 9:00 and stayed away until about 3:00. Since I spent the time away from a cottage at a huge mall, I was suffering from mall burnout. I actually dislike malls intensely, but I had to go to the Apple Store and the nearest one to us is….you guessed it….in a mall. By the time I had some lunch and took care of business, my eyes were stinging and the lighting was getting to me. I kept in touch with Don all day.

Call one: The branches are all down and they are meticulous about clean-up.
Call two: They’re on a lunch break.
Call three: They’re back and are taking down the trunk.
Call four: You’d better stall a bit if you don’t want to get upset. Get some lunch.
Call five: Still taking down the tree.
Call six: It’s down, you can come home.

So I drove up the driveway and saw the massive trunk in pieces all over the yard. I cried a bit. It was shocking but, truth be told, I spent a lot of time preparing myself and had reconciled myself to it. The yard looks even more barren, as there is mud everywhere, and the willow tree helped to mask it. I didn’t take any pictures. I recorded Hurricane Irene’s destruction of our trees last fall. I don’t need to do it a second time.

But, what can you do? It had to come down. The tree was easily 90 – 100′ high and it was huge. The 3 guys who took it down worked tirelessly and cheerfully from 9 in the morning until 7 that night. It was a lot of money for us but, in reality, a very good deal considering the size of the tree and the amazing job they did.

And in the glass half-full department, I was doing some work in the guest room/office which looks out on the front yard and noticed that I could see the mountains and creek from the window. We’d never had that view before because of the tree.

Let’s see, what else is positive? I won’t have to clean up endless branches after a wind storm.

And we no longer have to worry about it falling on our house or our neighbor’s house. And we worried about that a lot.

Our neighbors must be sick of hearing the noise of machinery around this place. It’s been a noisy two weeks. And an emotional two weeks.

My plan for today? Laze around. Avoid looking out the front window. Dream about my garden. Crochet. Read.

What’s your plan for the day?

On the Rocks

Is Your Gardening Thumb Green or Black?

If a Tree Falls….

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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