Projects

There's always projects going on at the house. This is one that I wish I would've gotten a video of. We had a pine tree that was leaning against the fence and over into the neighbor's yard. Not only was it damaging the fence, but it also would've crashed into their roof if it ever fell over. Unfortunately I didn't take any "before" pictures, but you can envision from this picture of the stump how the tree was leaning.


So I rigged up some safety lines to an avocado tree to hopefully keep it from falling the wrong direction when I cut it.


I then did some internet research because I was paranoid about the tree still wanting to fall the wrong direction (i.e. into my neighbor's roof). The interesting thing I found on an arborist site was that the recommended cut is a 70 deg notch on the side that you want the tree to fall. The old method I was aware of was a 45 deg notch. But the 70 deg notch ensures that the hinge stays intact until the tree is completely down. This is suppose to provide better control of where the tree falls. So you can see here how the 70 deg notch allowed enough clearance for the tree to completely fall before closing.


And that the hinge stayed predominately intact.


It was really something to see the tree falling just the way you planned- it was "internet textbook". That's why I wish I would've gotten a video of it because things don't always go exactly as they're suppose to. And the relief of not having to pay for repairing the neighbor's roof was priceless.


Another project I recently completed was resetting all of the railroad ties that create a retaining wall along our driveway. They were starting to be pushed out and falling over. Once I started digging them out, I found out the reasons - roots and rot. Tree roots had undermined a lot of the ties, and several of the ties were crumbling to pieces. So what I thought was going to be a relatively straightforward job turned into a lot more. Hopefully this will hold out until we can get the driveway repaired and a real retainer built (projects that are in the way distant future).



The other project I'm working on is still in process, but is going to be the testbed for some planting I'd like to do throughout the property. I'd like the plants here to be either natives or succulents. I used natives for erosion control when we built the workshop so now I need to get some experience with succulents. So I figured I'd start on the front of the property that adjoins the street. And as most projects go, it grew into a little more than just planting a few succulents. First, there is no water out there so I had to run a water line from about 120 ft away.


Then I decided that I wanted to do a little hardscaping in this area so I added a dry river bed. Fortunately a friend (thanks Diane) had a bunch of river rock she wanted to part with so I made many trips carrying as much as (maybe a little more than) the poor Subaru could handle. This is the beginnings of the river bed. Once the river bed is completed, I'll add mulch and then start laying out the succulent design.



Another part of this project is to replace our old mailbox with a delivery box I've had for years, but just haven't had the time to install it. It needs a little concrete pad so that's the hole for it next to our current mailbox. I'm hoping someday to see concrete in that hole.


And lastly (for now), this is the start of a rock border I'm building along our uphill property line. The idea is to help control the erosion and weeds that occurs in this area (note: neighbor side = weeds; our side = no weeds). All of this rock has been scavenged from our property, but I'm going to need to buy some rip rap to complete it. Only about 200 ft to go...