Tree Trimming

Y’know how you can start out doing one little thing and with no intention on your part it can turn into two seemingly unnegotiable weekends worth of work? OK, that just happened to me and Hubby.

For us, it started with an afternoon where Hubby and I took a perimeter look at our house, pulling weeds, cutting down mini-saplings that were growing in the bushes, pondering whether that hasta we transplanted 2 years ago would bloom this year, wondering whether the 25 year old air conditioner that sits on a slab in the side yard would start again this year, bemoaning the fact that the supposedly indestructible peppermint that I used to dry into tea has vanished, picking up trash. Just the usual. This was the weekend after Memorial Day, when we planted tomatoes in large buckets and I planted the Wee Garden with four varieties of sunflowers that are due to grow into four heights. Y’know, the Midwest in the springtime.

Well, the next weekend, Hubby and I are sitting on the deck one morning looking over our fence into our side yard and I see half a dozen saplings growing up out of the pine trees. Big saplings. Not to be toyed with saplings. Saplings that mean it. The pine trees are enormous – maybe 35 feet high with enormous girths and very wide boughs. Some of the saplings are as high as 6 feet. I  say we have to get those out of there. Hubby suggests we get to it. It’s early yet.

We have to do a little pruning of the pine trees to even get at the saplings. Just a little, mind. One snip there, one there.  Hubby is on his knees covered in dripping sap crawling under this enormous tree and before I can blink he has the bottom two layers of one tree cut away and he is moaning and complaining in the voice he reserves especially and particularly for the maintenance efforts of the people who used to own our house. Thus begins a steady stream of blame and complaints that I have learned not to interfere with lest I am blamed as a a. naive and b. unsupportive spouse. I note that soon one tree looks very different from the other tree and the saplings that need to be removed are on the other side of the pine trees entirely.

“Ah, hubby? I think it’s time to stop and move over to the other side of the tree.”

“Let’s start taking the brush over to the driveway.”

“Ah, hubby? I like the trees the way they are, let’s just leave them.”

“Look what’s under here!  A concrete slab, an old rake, fence posts, and a barrel.”

“Really? Wow, those people who lived here before us must have used this as a dumping ground.”

“Those dumb people who lived in this house immediately before us. They… blah… blah… blah”

“But hubby? We don’t know what we’re doing and we should really stop now.”

“Nonsense.”

Now, I believe that trees have souls. Pruning a tree for the sake of it’s health and the safety of the humans and homes who live near it is fine by me.  But reckless trimming with no plan whatsoever does not fall into my general comfort level.

But shortly put, once we started we couldn’t stop. There was just no way to stop without the trees damning us. They looked ridiculous half an hour after he got in there. We had to make it work. And we did. 27 lawn bags, two trimmed pine trees, most of two bushes, one truck of brush to the chipping center and more than 40 hours of labor later and we’re looking pretty good. More to go on that side of the house in years to come, but we may be done for this year.

I’m thinking of getting a little bench for under there. I’d have “before” pictures but like I said we were into this without planning.

Kitchen Cupboard Project Update

Remember the Winter Project of 2008 that became a Continuing Saga and turned into the Day I Stripped… Paint? To cut to the chase, Hubby wanted to refinish the kitchen cupboards and so to ease me into the project we decided to refinish the pantry doors. It’s been 6 months since my last post on this. 6 months in which the pantry doors have sat partially sanded in the garage and I’ve tried not to think about them.

Hubby and I finally had the heart-to-heart where I said, Dude, I am not refinishing the kitchen cupboards with you. To which he replied, Well then you can paint the pantry doors white for all I care. To which I was like Dude, I just stripped white paint from one side of one of them, it took me a full day of my life that I can never get back, and we might as well as least finish the job on this.

The pantry doors sit forlorn but we have decided to finish them this summer. It might be more accurate to say Hubby has decided we will finish them this summer and I have agreed more to get off the topic than anything else. We will, I note, do the sanding in the backyard as when I sanded one side of one door in the garage the whole garage became covered in a fine layer of sawdust.

There Are No Funny Pictures Because It’s Not Funny

I am a blogger. I blog. If something comes up in my world that would be a good blog posting, I try to post about it. My blog follows my life and my interests and my activities. I hope you all are interested in genealogy, ’cause you’re getting a lot of that right now.

Good blogging involves a certain level of visual interest – photos, maps, scanned images, etc. I’m pretty lame at this aspect of blogging – I’m a lousy photographer so I don’t bore you with a lot of bad pictures.

So, what makes for a good picture? What could even a bad photographer make look good? Well, a cream colored carpeting with clearly visible sooty black paw prints frolicking from one end of the room to the other, that would make for a pretty amusing photo. I am aware of that. It’s not that I don’t know that. It’s that sooty black paw prints are not amusing. They are expensive. So the only shot you got the other day was of the most damaged section.

It’s a second time around boys and girls, second time around.

The morning after the carpet cleaners came and steam washed the soot out of the cream colored carpeting in the basement family room I get up as usual and make my way to the kitchen to start a pot of  coffee.

All over the kitchen countertops are – you guessed it – black, sooty, putty cat paw prints. ALL OVER. We make this little joke, ha ha, hee hee, that the cats take over the house when we’re at work and probably – oh isn’t this cute – sleep on the stove. Well, they don’t. I can tell you that because I know exactly where they spend their time on my kitchen counter tops – EVERYWHERE BUT THE STOVE. THE CATS WERE EVEN UP ON TOP OF THE FLOUR CANISTER AND THE CEREAL CONTAINERS.

There is no cat food and no cat treats on top of the flour canisters and never has been. And yet, they were up there, way up there, way up under the cupboards:

No, I didn’t take a picture of the paw prints. I sprinted down the stairs to see what the basement looked like. It wasn’t as bad as the day before, but it wasn’t good, either. Sooty paw prints all over one end of the cream room, out onto the linoleum, up the stairs, up onto the counters. Of course there was soot cat vomit. TMI? Yeah, for me, too.

The two big containers of craft materials that we’d used to block the fireplace were pushed casually out of the way. I scrubbed down the kitchen while the coffee started. I didn’t take pictures. Yes, they would have been amusing. This situation is not even remotely amusing.

From the kitchen I went on a kitty hunt, looking at paws. Candy is the culprit. Little orange-and-white soot-eating monster that she is:

This weekend we decided to take care of the soot situation. We emptied, vaccumed and washed out the fireplace. Ever washed out a fireplace? Yeah, down on your hands and knees with bucket after bucket of not-ever-going-to-come-away-clean water it feels pretty much like that. And no, soot does not come out from under your fingernails or in the cuts on your hands very easily.

As I write we are waiting for it to stop raining outside so we can wash down the grate in the backyard, then put the whole thing back together again and wire-tie it shut. We wanted to drill it shut but the metal won’t support that so wire ties it will have to be. We don’t use the fireplace so it won’t be a loss. In between now and then, even though it’s been thoroughly washed down, here’s the state of the fireplace:

I can’t guarantee we’ll take that chest away even when it’s wiretied shut.

I Don’t Plan to Laugh About This, Like, Ever

Believe it or not, blogging was not the first thing that occurred to me when I went into the family room this morning and found the 13X30 space tracked from one end to the other with black cat paw prints. This means you’re not getting the “full effect” photos. The picture below is  after my best cleaning effort. Remember that sea of cream carpeting I blogged about last year? OK, this is totally it:

The grate in front of the fire place was pushed out and the paw prints started there. Under my craft table was a large wet spot of black: soot cat vomit. The entire room is tracked with putty cat prints. I am not exaggerating on this point. I couldn’t believe it as I got out the vacuum and did my best to get up the prints. They romped into all the nooks and crannies.

I called the culprits this morning with my cooing voice to get pictures but they didn’t get any damned treats for posing. Little bastards:

I have a call in to Maurer’s carpet cleaners. I could have waited until they were open but instead I called them at 6:30 when I found the mess and left a message.

I can’t even be cute and amusing in blog fashion about this. My sea of cream carpeting is an unmistakable romp of black kitty cat paw prints.

Awe man, now we look ridiculous

A month or so ago hubby asks me to call around and find a roof rake. He is in charge of home maintenance purchases. I had never heard of a roof rake but hell, fuses scared me until 2008 so I’m not one to bet on.  I did as requested and the first two places I called were sold out.  In my mind this meant that roof rakes must be a. valuable to home maintenance efforts and b. totally common household resources and c. between their scarcity and hubby’s request we should find one immediately. I kept at it and we obtained a roof rake.

Today, another family dinner canceled due to snow, Hubby says he wants to roof rake. Now, in my mind, the roof rake was part of our on-going gutter care efforts. If you’ll recall, we replaced the gutters with the roof. And then Hubby put on gutter guards to keep the gutters from getting full of leaves. I figured we’d use the roof rake to clean off the gutters – y’know, keep the weight of the snow from damaging the gutters, keep the ice off.

No. A roof rake actually rakes a roof. And interestingly enough, the only parts of the roof that get raked are the parts you can reach from the ground. And now the roof looks absolutely ridiculous. Like a shaved cat.

I began complaining the minute we started. “The house is going to look ridiculous!” I said. A few minutes later I said it again. I said it all the way around the house. I added that I had never seen another house look like this. And that houses with snow on the roofs looked pretty.

At the end of the roof raking I said, “Why are we doing this?”

“Eh, it’s something to do,” replies he.

The Day I Stripped… Paint

Remember how last winter we were going to refinish the kitchen cupboards but watched Six Feet Under and ate desserts instead?

OK, we’re having a second go.

Today we decided to sand down the pantry doors, which are painted. They’ve been off the pantry for almost a year now. After several minutes of sanding that went nowhere we decided to buy paint stripper. This sounded to my uninitiated ears like it would be a simple and easy solution to the hassle of hours of sanding. I had this image of rubbing on a magical solution that would dissolve the paint and then we could put the new stuff on. I hopped off to the hardware store and ended up calling Hubby in the paint aisle.

“How much of this stuff should I buy?” I asked.

“That depends on the tragedy of it all,” he replied.

“Tragedy?”

“Yeah, whether we kill each other over the pantry doors or actually move on to the kitchen.”

While it may sound harsh to outside ears, this is actually a very generous comment. It has nothing to do with “us.” He means whether I throw a tantrum and refuse to do any more of it.

Hey, I was the one going “Condo, condo, condo” when we were home-hunting.

I bring home the paint stripper, apply it, realize its not mixed well enough, shake it, pour it, realize its not mixed well enough, shake it, pour it, let it sit for 20 minutes and then go to scrape off the “sludge,” realize I didn’t put near enough on, wait another 20 minutes. Hubby informs me we may have to do this 4 or 5 times. For each side. Of each of the two doors. And that’s only to get the paint off, not put the new stuff on. I remain silent.

Roof Is Done!

As evidenced by the return of the clock, the roof is done!

Here’s the final effect. Please note lack of spirals, turrets or balconies. After it was done I started brooding about the monthly payment and thinking maybe we could have put the purchase off for a year. I had serious plans for that monthly payment money and it included padding the savings account, new paint for the dining room and kitchen, new blinds and curtains for the slider, a little table and chair set for the backyard, a spring road trip to the UP, and maybe, JUST MAYBE, one of those big lighted sleighs for the holidays for the front yard (yeah, I love those things and Hubby and I do light stuff every winter). And ease, I mean, our whole budget was going to be a little rounder; I just got a raise last month. I think we did the responsible thing, though.

The one thing where I’m feeling we went a little overboard was in getting the gutters re-done.

Here’s the new gutter replacing the spot where the gutter was bent and created a small swimming pool beneath it every time we get any substantial rain – and hence a leak in the basement at that exact spot. I was up for replacing just the back gutter, but Hubby wanted the front done, too. He feels better knowing the whole house has new gutters that are of a higher quality than the last set. They look nicer, too. Not nice enough for the cost, but, whatever. We have new gutters now.

Here’s our lawn sign for the Capital Area Transportation Authority, Lansing’s bus service. In the midst of this energy crisis, CATA’s operating millage failed this fall. They’re going up again in November. I mean, their operating millage failed. This would mean, among other things, serious cutbacks (evening and weekend service) for SpecTran, the service for people with disabilities. This would really cut back on Hubby’s transportation independence. Go CATA millage!

Roofing as I Blog

As I blog I can hear the saw going outside – sawing up new boards for the ones that need to be replaced. As we pay for the new boards by the square foot (materials and labor separately), I’m hoping that sound stops soon.

The garage is done. The new shingles are, interestingly enough, black as ordered. They look black. They are black in color. Simple black. As ordered. Standard, standard, standard to quote myself. They do improve the curb appeal of the house over the curling up, algae-ridden shingles although I admit to a subconscious desire that a (very expensive) new roof would transform our 1959 ranch into some sort of magic realistic vision.

Everything has been pretty much fine with the normal bumps you find in a big project. The first day a couple of fuses were blown – the one for the master bedroom and part of the living room was obvious and I swapped it out (Note: Snakelady replaced a fuse and it was not a big deal), but the family room now has no working outlets. Not so sure about that one. Hubby will call Hunk Poet Electrician. On day two, one of the springs on the attic staircase went flying into the living room and could not be put back. This has happened before but was fixable and it wasn’t quite so inconvenient then as when you’ve got people that need up into the attic repeatedly. When the stairs are not open they are now drilled closed. Not giving me a comfy cozy feeling when I walk under them though. One of the roofers (known as Helluvaguy) will put in a new spring for us. I made him some coffee. I hope he liked the brownies.

backyard workshop

Roof!

Well, we’re on to the promised blogging about the roof.  With lots of photos.

Here’s Hubby waving to the camera (note roof behind him):

Here’s Candy Cat at the back door watching Hubby and Snakelady and Bethesda all outside. She may go outside when she’s too arthritic to jump over the fence.

Here’s the algae growing on the garage roof in the worst possible light. Normally it doesn’t look quite so “dude! have you had someone look at your roof?” Yeah, the shingles were originally flat black. Above it is the honey locust tree that provides the shade etc. that fosters the algae growth.

Here’s a second view because I had a few good ones and I’m in a Flickr kinda mood:

Here’s the crappy flashing that allows water to leak down the chimney. The wet spot on the living room ceiling has dried now, as has the wet spot in the attic, so there’s nothing there to show. I couldn’t really get a shot of the widespread curling shingles, but they are there.

Here’s Candy wiping her face against the front screen door as I came around. No, she can’t come out this door either.

They don’t so much do arty roofs here with multi-colored shingles (like interspersed blue and green) like I saw in Portland when I was there 2 1/2 years ago. And I’m not so much a decorator. I looked at a lot of roofs and finally just went with flat black. They talked to me about a “pewter” roof that’s mainly gray. It looked nice on the blue houses we saw, but we’ve got red brick, white siding and black shingles. Standard, standard, standard. I’m going with a standard, flat-black roof (“charcoal”). Snakelady striking out on her own to start a neighborhood trend of interesting roofing is really not a good idea for aesthetic reasons.

The current roof was a 20-year roof. It lasted 17 years. We’ve gone with 30-year shingles. Hell, we might be here that long. We really like this house. Normally it takes me years to get used to a new place to live. I never did get used to our last place despite the fact that it was a “nice” apartment with cathedral ceilings, an enormous kitchen and a first floor laundry, etc., etc. I just never fit in there. This place is my home. Right down to the questionably sponge painted guest room, the loose tiles in the kitchen floor, the veritable sea of cream carpeting in the family room and the leaky basement.

In the freezer are fudge brownies I made from scratch (from that Brownie Cookbook I got with Mom on our spa day two years ago). Very good brownies. For the crew. So they’ll think, “Wow, a great family lives here. We’ll want to do our best on their roof. Do this one right, y’all!” Roof construction starts later this week.

What Ike Wrought in the Wee Garden

Bethesda surveys the damage after three days of Hurricane Ike’s northern rains swept through Michigan.

The roof was rained on for three days, also. Know that roof we priced but planned to buy next year? Yeah, that’s going to be happening NOW. RIGHT NOW. Blogging of the event to come (but of course).