Good Sunday morning

pigless in VA

Well-Known Member
Bingo let me sleep until 9:30 am this morning. He must have been extra tired from chasing squirrels all day.

My eyeballs are itching since I worked in the yard yesterday. My neighbor put up a picket fence between her front yard and mine which totally disrupted the flow of my garden. She and I have two different gardening styles. She likes a perfectly trimmed, manicured, and symmetrical yard. She likes short trees and flowers that behave. I like things that spread out and multiply and fill in all the space in different colors and patterns. I have 3 giant trees in my front yard: a tulip poplar, a white pine and a magnolia. She cut down her giant pines, because she couldn't stand the cones dropping. Sadly, all 3 of my trees drop detritus in her yard. I think she would have been happier buying a house in a treeless neighborhood. Anyway, I think the fence was necessary in order to show people that my messy yard was not related to her neat yard.

We have another new neighbor who literally cut down every last tree in her yard this week. Every shrub is gone. Every flower is gone. The yard is bald. I try to be open minded, but I don't think I am going to like this woman. Our neighborhood was established in the 50's. I think one of its charms is the mature trees and shrubs. I can't imagine buying a house on our street if you're afraid of trees. There are plenty of neighborhoods built on old pastures that have zero trees. That seems like a better option than tree murder.
 

Nomad

Well-Known Member
Staff member
OMG...I find it weird when people cut down so many trees and shrubbery. I know during certain seasons it's good to give most shrubs and many trees and nice trim, but we had that experience recently, where the people pulled out most things and drastically trimmed the few remaining plants to two tiny sickly tidbits. It looks like a war occurred in what was once a picture from the Garden of Eden. It took our breath away ... And NOT in A good way. Maybe they are afraid of burglars? Crazy guess. I love the greenery. Ugh.
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
I love mature trees and messy gardens and all of that. When husband and I had our house in Chicago, we were on a tiny lot.

We had an enormous spruce tree growing in the center of the back yard. One of our neighbors was over on a Friday evening. He'd been a "gardener" back in Poland, and told us the ol' spruce had to come down ASAP as a large part of the visible root system was dead and pulling loose from the ground.

Fine. husband figured he'd call an arborist 1st thing Monday. Saturday afternoon it stormed. The tree came down alright.

New screen porch. Half a new roof including beams, New windows for the "cat room" (upstairs bedroom)sundry siding. In general just a huge mess.

Luckily, we had good insurance, but it took two weeks to get contractors out due to the amount of storm damage in the area. We did get someone out to board things up and put plastic over the damage on the back of the house and the roof.

The weirdest thing was that a tree fell on our BFFs home in Milwaukee during the same storm and did a lot of damage.
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
Pigless, they make "allergy eyedrops" now. They are basically an antihistamine eyedrop. Some come with redness relief.

Walgreen's and Wal-mart have them out in their house brands now, so they're not as horribly expensive as they used to be.

I literally suffer from horrible allergies from tree-flowering to first hard freeze. (after that it's just dust, mold, and the cats) and live on copious amounts of diphenhydramine, allergy eyedrops, and steroid nasal spray)
 

pigless in VA

Well-Known Member
GN, our new neighbor is moving from Tappahannock where a tornado just ripped through. It's possible she had a lot of damage and just decided to get rid of the trees here. I will look for those eyedrops, thanks!
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
That could be. I just love trees, especially oaks and sycamores, neither of which we had up North as the winters were too cold for them.

The house I lived in on the North shore had an immense sycamore on the front lawn, one of the few remaining in the area.

I loved that tree. When my mother sold the house after my father died, the new owners promptly cut that beautiful tree down!

It did need a bit of extra water in the summer to keep its roots out of the plumbing. My dad had sunk pipes around the root line and simply used to hook up a hose and give the tree a good drink a couple of times a week.

He also used to mix a little fertilizer in with the water. After all, it was a very old tree and deserved to be spoiled a little.

I assume the new homeowner got rid of the tree because of the plumbing issues it caused, but it's still a shame.
 

Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
Good morning, everyone.

I have been watching for this thread today. I enjoy hearing about everyone's day very much.

More of the same for me today, as we prepare to close the house. Everything is beginning to sparkle and shine.

:O)

Cedar
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Hi this Sunday. Since I know npthing abput gardening and have a black thumb, I'll talk about our Saturday,which was perfect sunny weather in the 70s. We went to an outdoor target practice and I watched my husband still able to shoot bullseyes. My daughter, future law enforcement officer, was awesome too. Me? Next topic!

I never thought I'd be on a shooting range. Where I grew up, nobody hunted. Nobody thought being a cop was good enough. Nobody talked sbout guns at all.

So I changed after I moved up here.


Today is my favorite home based thing to do...dog park day in a lovely dog park, full of dog lovers, and with a large, clean park and a smaller one for small dogs who do better away from big ones.

I wish you all a nice, peaceful day.
 

Wiped Out

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Good morning! Was up early for church and then grocery shopping but laid back down to try and get in a nap. Nothing big on the agenda today except trying to enjoy this beautiful weather (and a bit of cleaning).
 

HMBgal

Well-Known Member
Good morning all. Just back to the San Francisco Bay Area from Seattle. I drove my 7 month pregnant daughter up, she got so sick that we had to stop in Medford, Oregon for a day in their labor and delivery unit to try and stop her from throwing up and the dehydration was causing her to have contractions. At least she managed to do that in a level 3 NICU in case the baby arrived early (she's 31 weeks). They were amazing and how lucky we were to be there instead of out in the middle of nowhere. We did make it eventually up to Seattle and settle her in her new amazing home in Puyallup. This was my spring break from my teaching job. Yikes.

So, drove her up in her car, with a very spirited and stubborn three year old boy, and flew home. Actually got 8 straight hours of sleep in my own bed (her little boy isn't big on sleeping, especially in motel rooms) and I'm trying to readjust to being back home before I'm up at zero dark thirty to get to work tomorrow.

My difficult grandson was a champ while I was gone, although his mother lost her job, again. Her ADD is so bad that she cannot hold a job, which means I can't retire anytime soon because while I don't care if she loses her apartment and couch surfs at friends houses for the rest of her life, I cannot allow her children to suffer from her idiotic choices and ways of doing things. I'm a little pissed at her, can you tell?

Sigh, so it's been a highly emotional week for me, my pregnant daughter has been crying for three days straight at the thought of my leaving and leaving her up there with no family and no friends, and I feel helpless to do make her feel better. Her home is brand new, huge and gorgeous, the neighborhood is safe and beautiful (but not mature trees yet, but the lawns and landscaping the builders put in are amazing) but family trumps all of that, so she's having a very hard time of it. Her husband is a good provider for the most part, but isn't very helpful as a dad and is fairly clueless about many day-to-day things, so she's really on her own. Her toddler son is so obstreperous that she's embarrassed to join a mommy group for support. I told her to do it anyway and she'll find out that her son isn't the only little terror and the support and commiseration will be amazing.
 

Copabanana

Well-Known Member
Good afternoon and evening to all.

My neighbor put up a picket fence between her front yard and mine which totally disrupted the flow of my garden.
Well, if we think back to the public commons, the green space in a community which was shared space for all, we can surmise her feelings about belonging and commonality. How tragic for all that she wants to stop flow and energy. How deeply sad for her and really, for all of us.
She likes short trees and flowers that behave
This makes me think of our D C's. Looking at it this way I am glad I have a far-ranging, messy, and unpredictable tree, that may aspire to belong and to flow.
I think the fence was necessary in order to show people that my messy yard was not related to her neat yard.
This piece of it, I can relate to. How I have yearned for order in the family landscape. How useful is it to remember the implications.
 

pigless in VA

Well-Known Member
Copa, you are astute. I knew this neighbor and I weren't going to be friends from a conversation the two of us had when she first moved in. Our boys were 3 years old at the time and she told me that #1 no 3 year old should still be wearing diapers (my kid was), #2 she only allowed her child to play with one toy at a time and #3 she left all her breakables out in her house because "a child should learn not touch things." I have a completely different parenting style from her. My kid did eventually learn not touch things, but not at age 3.

We have many clashes over the yard. If sticks fall from my trees, she tosses them over the fence. When they erected the picket fence, I got no warning. They tromped all over my irises. I would have preferred that they had told me what they were planning to do, so that I could have moved the flowers. My tulip poplar is a huge bone of contention. It had the audacity to drop a limb on her glass patio table. As a concession, I had my arborist trim it up some. I'm sure she would rather that I cut it down. The magnolia leaves are constantly littering her grass, and so are the pine tags and cones. At least the neighbors on the other side of me are more forgiving.

hmbgal , I'm glad your daughter is okay. Tell her from me that MOST three year olds are obstreperous. A mommy group would do her a world of good and give him an outlet for all that energy. I taught preschool for 9 years; I've known a lot of 3 year old little people.
 
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