This weekend we had a lot to do at the Mountain Cottage, but we only had Saturday to do it because we had to be home Sunday morning since it's Mr. DIY's week to volunteer at church.
Some times things can't wait; we had bare root trees that had to get in the ground before they started sprouting and berries in pots that needed to be planted.
We had a tree service coming to cut down a tall oak tree that had been left to grow huge just 6 ft from the foundation of the house(and there was a crack starting to form).
We had another coat of drywall to apply in the future upstairs bathroom.
Don't you love it when you have a list like that?
We stopped off at the big box stores to get supplies after dinner on Friday night(yes, more than one store), then drove up to the house so we could get started early on Saturday morning. We arrived around 10 pm, unloaded the car and I couldn't keep my eyes open.
For some reason I turn into a morning person up at the mountain cottage and Mr. DIY seems to be able to stay up late, unlike at home.
Around 8:30 am we heard big trucks starting up the driveway. The big equipment had arrived.
You know, sometimes, you can't do it all and have to hire someone to help get things done.
There was no way we were going to drop that big oak ourselves being so close to the house and even though it cost a lot, it was worth having the professionals take it down safely. Plus, when we bought the house, the sellers included several hundred dollars towards it's removal after we asked them to take it down.
(as a side note, Mr. DIY and I rented a bucket and cut down something tall in our backyard, but that was at least 10 years ago~ and it wasn't nearly as sturdy as the one in the photo)
I don't know about you, but I have a difficult time seeing a big oak tree taken down.
Once I saw quite a few pieces that were rotted in the middle, I didn't feel so bad.
While the guys were working outside with the tree and some huge brush piles, Mr. DIY was upstairs sanding and applying a new coat of mud on the drywall. I have to tell you, getting the drywall finished to the point where it is ready to paint is not a fun job.
And it's messy.
And there's drywall dust everywhere.
Definitely looking forward to painting this area!
After applying a 2nd coat of mud, we both went outside and started planting the berries. I've always wanted to have blueberry bushes, but we just don't have enough sun where we live. I love black raspberries too and can't wait until next year to have some of both. Yum.
I think the most difficult thing for me to do was to prune the berry plants back so that the roots will get established. Seriously, I had a difficult time cutting back perfectly good growth.
After planting 3 blueberries and several black raspberries, (and fencing them so the deer and rabbits don't eat them), we started on the apple and almond trees.Will have to share how to plant apple trees another time.
I tell ya, we had use gravel to protect the tree roots from voles, we used corrugated pipe to protect the trunks from rabbits and installed a 5 ft fence around each tree to protect them from deer. Hopefully, we did enough.
We finally finished all of this around 6 pm.
Don't know about you, but we're not getting any younger and we were both exhausted.
After putting everything away and packing up, we were out of there by 7:30.
I took this photo just before we left.
The newly planted (and fenced) trees are on the right and way off in the distance are the blueberries and black raspberries.
The tree guys will be coming back for the logs in the foreground.
So that was our Saturday. How was yours?
Hope it was more relaxing than ours was.
Pam
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