Posts from the ‘Yard’ Category

DOT saves the day

Do you ever say or write something and wonder if it’s the first time in the history of the world that it’s been said or written?  The title of this post is one of those phrases.  In my last post I wondered if we’d ever encounter success having the tree that fell near our yard cleaned up.  After too much time on the phone with various government agencies, the North Carolina DOT finally relented and showed early this morning to remove the tree:

Yes, I took the photo out of my upstairs window because, yes, NC uses old-fashioned inmate labor to keep our roads clear.  8 dudes, 1 backhoe, 1 dump truck and a chainsaw made quick work of it.  Many thanks to the secretary at the local DOT yard who graciously received all of my annoying phone calls.

Arboreal angst

During last weeks test-run for monsoon season, a tree fell near the corner of our property.  That near is important.  I found the following upon arrival at the scene:

See that bundle of pink tape in the foreground of the photo?  That’s our property corner.  The tree in question, running horizontally across the top of the photo, never has been and never will be on our property.  Everything beyond the corner marker is in the street right-of-way.  Unfortunately, our street is maintained by the state, meaning we’re dealing with DOT to try to arrange removal.  They have no particular incentive to remove the tree quickly since it’s not impeding traffic.  We, however, are trying to preserve neighborly harmony, despite the fact that this really isn’t our problem.  Yes, the tree happens to fall on our side of the line, but the line hangs a hard left and heads east before getting to that tree.  Summary: it ain’t ours!

Nevertheless, I have a sneaking suspicion that due to stereotypical government-style bureaucracy, we’re going to end up cleaning up a tree that’s not on our property that fell into a yard that’s not ours either.

A Sunday well spent

Some people wake up on Sunday morning, say “screw it, it’s Sunday”, roll over and go back to sleep.  Others get dressed to the nines and amble off to church.  I eat my Lucky Charms, down a tall cup of black coffee and decide that it would be a great idea to tackle this:

“This” being the low brick planter built smack against the house, a big no-no for lots of reasons.  The planter created a trough that collected all manner of evil things against the foundation and siding: water, dirt, leaves and bugs among them.

So, shovel and sledge in hand, I set to work demolishing the ugly masonry edifice. Fortunately, it wasn’t the stoutest brick wall on the block, so aside from being heavy, the work wasn’t too bad.

Here’s where most folks call it quits, take a shower and sit down for an afternoon marathon of Mad Men Season 5.  I decide to install the mother of all drainage systems:

Worried about the water coming from the east side of the house, I devised this system to divert it around the foundation and into an existing terra cotta drain I found below the brick patio.  I prefer to use rigid PVC drain pipe in these scenarios since it’s less likely to develop low spots when you backfill and it’s less susceptible to intrusion by tree roots.  But, to pick up the downspout in the foreground and jog around the stair foundation, I had to transition to the more common black corrugated pipe.  Everything works great: the first hard rain sent water gushing from the outlet at the bottom of the patio.

A Sunday well spent, the old house way.

Weed whacking

Last Tuesday evening, I felt the urge to do something, anything to start to make this house ours.  Often, short and sweet projects are the most satisfying, so I concentrated my energies on a tiny patch of “garden” next to one of the back porches.  It looked like this:

After an hour of chopping, pruning and digging, I managed to tame the vegetative orgy, and the remaining plants were reduced to two: a scraggly rose bush and one lone daylily.  I’m not sure that either of these are right for the spot, but they’ll do for now.  Check out the dead-sexy rubble stone foundation that was hiding behind all those weeds:

I finished up by pushing the dirt around a bit to make sure that there’s positive drainage away from the house.  It won’t make the cover of Country Gardens anytime soon, but baby steps, right?