Tree Woes and Grass Grows

Saturday I was out in the yard with Mikey near our new Japanese maple and nearly died. The leaves on the maple were crinkly and dry. Petrified that tree-death was imminent, I had Mike water it well. Then, I hopped on the internet and read this article from someone in my exact situation.

Ok, phew. After reading all the comments, I came to the conclusion that this was normal - probably transplant shock - maples are hardy, we were watering enough, and not to freak out.

But I still can't help but worry. It's only gotten worse since Saturday. Now, most of the leaves have fallen off. It's been pretty warm, but we had rain this morning and a little last night. Rain is due again over the weekend... other then that, there's not much else I can do but pray it'll bounce back like the article advises it will.

I love this tree and it was so beautiful and full when I brought it home. Now it's a wreck and if it dies I'm going to be absolutely heartbroken. The two cherry trees out in front of our house are absolutely flourishing - despite being eaten again this year by bugs. So I feel like if those can succeed, this maple will too. I'm trying to keep the faith.

Out in the back yard, grass is coming up nicely! We've watered with the sprinklers every morning and evening with great results. It's nearly ready to walk upon!

Unfortunately, all other projects are on hold due to a couple of busy weekends in a row. Hopefully we'll have the rest of the porch railings up by July 4th. I still need to paint. The kitchen needs drywall. The siding is just hanging out on the side yard. The octagonal window is in the basement.

Plenty of materials - I'm not spending anything else until we exhaust our current stock.

Announcing Our Newest (And Best) Home Improvement

We finally have our new addition! That's right - baby Mike Jr is finally here! I was a total of 10 days late, giving birth on Saturday May 9th at 1:38am - just a couple days before I was scheduled to be induced. He was 7lbs 2oz and 20inches long - very healthy and beautiful. We got home this past Monday and have been adjusting ever since.

Mike Sr had the week off from work (thank god) to help me out, so we decided to commemorate the occasion by planting two new trees in the front yard. (As I've said before, have a baby, plant a tree - it just makes sense.) The trees I picked are both Kwanzan flowering cherry trees, which I've always loved and wanted for years.


We just barely made the flowering cherry selling season - the garden center only had two left and wouldn't be ordering any more, since they would soon be out of bloom. Lucky for us, that's all we needed.

The next order of business - taking down that disgusting old pine. Which proved to be no big business at all. Mike had the whole thing down and chopped in what seemed like just a few minutes, although I'm sure it had to have been at least an hour or two. And the next day he took the whole thing to the dump. Simple.

The trees didn't prove to be much trouble either. We picked out the locations and Mike dug the holes, digging in a cone shape, with the bottom of the hole about three times larger than the tree's planting container and the top only about the same size. This was advised by the garden center guy, so we could grow grass right up to the base of the tree.

The front yard and the driveway look so much bigger with the pine gone! And we placed the new trees equidistant from the road, house, and driveway, one across from the french doors and one across from the front door. So no more threat of trees getting in the way as they grow.

Two new trees, one old stump

Tree #1

Tree #2

Next order of business - get some siding on the front of the house. While Mike was home, he also took some measurements. Our carpenter TJ did the calculations for us - so now we know how much... but we don't know how much - money that is.

Mike stopped by the Home Depot yesterday on his way home from some errands and discovered the pre-primed cedar clap boards to be very expensive. Around $120 for a bundle of 10, if I remember right. We need over 100 16 footers just for the front of the house. So what does that come out to be.... (getting calculator widget)... $1200? I may have my numbers wrong. For some reason I thought it was more expensive. Ok - I'll check on that.

Not that we'll purchase from the stupid deepHo anyway. A big purchase like this definitely deserves a trip to Morse Lumber. They'll treat us right. Mike will probably go there on Monday to check out pricing. I doubt we'll be puchasing at the moment, but you never know. We've been selling off some of our extra junk to pay for these repairs - a chainsaw paid for the trees, for example. A welder may just pay for the siding.