TRIMWORK WHILE RAINING

On Sunday it was raining so we couldn't work outside. Instead Tommy worked on the trimwork on the elliptical windows in the dining and office. I spent the day painting two coats on the fancy ceiling in the office and Tom's dad worked on hooking up the electric to the A/C units in the attic.

Not the most exciting day and no pictures to show for it.

ROCKY HILL

Saturday morning we loaded the truck with stumps and roots and headed to the Raritan Recycling Center to dump it. Then we got back and loaded the truck with garbage that has been laying around outside and took that to the Hunterdon County transfer station. YAY! Two more truckloads of junk is gone. It stinks because it took up the entire morning because the line at the transfer station is ridiculously long even if you get there early but it is great that the yard has two less truck loads of garbage laying around.

When we got back Tommy got the rest of the stumps off the front yard and I planted the rest of the junipers on the hillside. Then Tommy brought me scoops of the river rocks we had plucked out of some loads of soil we got for free and but them at the bottom of the hillside for me to lay out under the junipers. I did just that while Tommy shredded and moved some of the "garbage" leftover from the sawmill. Anything small enough was shredded and the rest is on the large firewood pile in the backyard. Laying those rocks out is quite a bit of work on that hill. It might not seem very steep but it is a workout. It was great when Tommy was done with his work and we could pick out the size rock we needed from the pile, put it in the bucket of the kubotka, and then place them where we needed to directly out of the bucket. I think it is looking pretty good so far.

DAFFODILS

I took the day off of work today. I didn't accomplish all that much though. I took some daffodils that were growing in the woods and transplanted them to the flower bed along the driveway. We will be covering where they were with quite a bit of dirt and it would have been such a shame to destroy them. After the daffodils were planted I started putting some of the woodchips from what we chipped last weekend on the flowerbed up the driveway, but didn't get too far before Tommy got home. We then took a drive to a Greenhouse & Nursery that I found on craigslist that has very good prices, actually AMAZING prices, on bushes and trees. We were able to pick up three white birch trees that we have been looking for and 22 gold tipped junipers for the hillside. YAY! When we got back we dug a big hole next to the porch and we planted all three of the white birch together. LOVE IT! Then Tommy started moving back some of the leftover logs on the frontyard from when the sawmill was here and I planted about 6 of the junipers before it was too dark for us to work outside anymore...

ROOTS

I am on travel for work so Tommy is was on his own last night and again tonight. He has been working on tearing all the relentless roots and vines out of the backyard with the kubotka...

Miss you!!!

PLUM TREES

After work tonight we moved the two plum trees that we got on the auction last year to the front of the house... basically put them on the hillside that we created on the right side of the house. We were a little concerned that they would block the house, but once we just did it we decided that we love it. We are planning some other plants for the hillside, we just need for lowes to get another shipment of them...

SHREDDING

We had a full crew on Saturday. Tom's parents came in the morning and brought the shredder and the stump grinder. Tom's parents and I went down to work on shredding the pile we already had at the end of the driveway while Tom worked on sharpening the teeth on the grinder. Halfway through the pile Pawel and Beata came driving up and they helped us shred all day. We cleaned up both piles in the front yard and then we worked on the existing pile in the backyard... Then we moved to the back of the backyard where there weren't real piles but we cut down some of the weed trees and cleaned up some of the brush.

Thanks for all the help... everything is looking great!

Today we shredded some more... Tom's parents came over and we continued to clean up the back back yard... It looks so clean... I don't know if anyone else will notice, but Tom and I sure know that it is clean and open.

Then we started on the mess on the stream side of the backyard...There were some piles covered with dead grass and alot of mixed up brush... We got that cleaned up and then tommy hooked up the vines in the trees with a chain and pulled them out of the trees with the kubotka. We shredded those and just at the last second a hydraulic hose busted on the shredder and the day was over.

WOOD STACKING

Nothing too exciting the end of this week... We spent yesterday and today after work moving and stacking the wood in the back yard. It is actually quite a bit of wood, but we were surprised it took us two nights...

We finished stacking the wood on Friday just in time for the rain... but that didn't stop us from going to Home Depot... I had a buy one get one free tree coupon so we took a trip to the Bridgewater Home Depot and got two trees. A cherry tree and a funky evergreen... yay! But I have to admit it is quiet a sight to have two trees in the trunk of the Hyundai...

LANDSCAPING

Finally took some pictures of the landscaping we started on the left side of the driveway. The deer have already started to eat the burning bushes but we have a home remedy that will hopefully work. We bought a blender and mixed eggs and cayenne pepper with water and sprayed it on the bushes... I don't think they have been eaten anymore... hope it works...

SAWYR

We took the day off of work today and had the guy come to saw the logs. It was a bit of a gamble having him come today because the forecasted weather called for rain, but although it drizzled a few times we were able to cut up a majority of the logs we had. I will call him SAWYR because that was on his license plate.

We had him cut a majority of cherry because we will use that for our kitchen cabinets. He also cut some walnut and maple. We hoped to use the maple for a butcher block top, but it turned out to be spalted so that did not work out, instead we will use cherry which I think I prefer anyway.

We had a regular and a visitor stop by and give us a hand. Tom's mom (the regular) came for the day and helped sweep off and stack the lumber as it was cut. The visitor, Lamar, was a really big help all day, he carried the lumber to the stack, helped Tommy get logs ready to be offloaded at the sawmill, but his defining moment of help was in the middle of the afternoon when Tommy accidentally flicked a log with the forks on the tractor and sent the log tumbling down the hill toward the sawmill, a dirty look from the SAWYR and a yell to Lamar and he ran over and stopped the log just in the nick of time. PHEW!!! This is especially funny because the SAWYR was OVERLY protective and VERY VERY anal about his sawmill so if that log hit his machine it would have been the end of the world.















We took some video, but every time we did the SAWYR screwed up, but you can check it out. The pictures of the log pile are from the middle of the day so imagine about double that amount of lumber.

DIRT, LOGS, and PLANTS

Friday night we worked on the front yard. No more dirt is needed but there was a mound on the right side that we cut a tree down from and then flattened it out a little bit. We also removed another walnut tree that I remeber last year was pretty messy once the walnuts begin falling. And that is that... it looks great...

Saturday we worked on the front yard some more. We pulled strings for the property line and staked out the driveway. Then Tommy took dirt out of the back (near where the driveway pad will be and put it on the left side of the driveway while I raked it into a mound.

We are having someone come with a portable sawmill on Tuesday to cut up the logs (cherry, walnut, and maple) that we are using for the kitchen cabinets. So onSunday Tommy moved the logs to the front yard and put them in piles of what order to have them cut since it is likely that all 50+ of them will not be cut in one day so picking the better ones is necessary. Meanwhile I went to Lowes and got some shrubs to plant on the left side of the driveway. Got some boxwoods and burning bushes. Also dug out some of the other plants and trees we got last year at that auction. Planted all of those and I think it turned out pretty good. Later in the afternoon Tom's parents came down and his mom brought me two pink dogwoods and a white blooming tree. Put the dogwood on the small hill we knocked down on Friday and the other one along the driveway, still need to find a place for the white one.

HAPPY EASTER!!!

We had a long but relaxing easter... Church at 6am... then a yummy breakfast at Tom's aunts followed by a late lunch... Then we headed over to Amy and Andre's for an evening easter hors d'avours get togehter... and home by 9pm... Like I said... a long day, but we deserve the relaxation, great food and good company...Fun times!

FRONT YARD GRADING

Friday night we set out to "move" the shed... We were able to movie it about 30 feet and then it started falling apart so we gave up. The walls had shifted about a foot off of the platform, that particle board plywood does not hold at all. So then Tommy flipped it over with the kubotka and it landed on the roof (scary moment because it was rolling towards the house!!!). We knoked it aprart and made piles of 2x4's to keep and plywood to scrap. Tommy told me about 4 times to watch out for nails, but inevitably he is the one that ended up stepping on one... it didin't stop him friday but he didn't wake up today without feeling the pain... So the backyard is starting to look clearer with the shed gone and some of the material we have organized, palletized and moved further back on the property. Saturday morning we first graded the front yeard. We evened out the base dirt and filled in holes and scarped down sope of the crappier dirt. We sculpted and raked the slope so that it looks good. We won't be able to plant grass there because it is a little too steep for mowing so we are thinking about using some fo the round river rocks and pachasandras or low evergreen style plants to cover that area. We shall see... Then tommy started to move topsoil from the backyard, near the deck area, to the front yard. Although it is really really really great topsoil it is pretty full of rocks and sticks so it is too difficult to rake it out and remove ALL those little rocks. The saving grace is going to be the rental of a harley rake. It will attache to the 3 point hitche and removes all the rocks from the soil. When we have the front yard and back yard fully grades we plan to rent that and give it a shot, hope it works! Since it wasn't worth it to try and rake out all the rocks I went inside and painted the second coat on the rest of the wind/door tops.