Our snow has been melting slowly but surely. As it disappeared it has revealed more damage.
I had been contemplating replacing the thorny bushes on the side of my front yard with raspberry bushes (why grow thorns when I can grow fruit). That has been forced up as the plan since most of those bushes are crushed and broken now. I ordered 10 3-year heritage raspberry bushes today, so I’ll soon be digging stuff up and replanting.
I’ve also been debating the landscaping on the front of my house since I moved in. That is also a newly urgent plan. The small pine trees on either side of the house had most of their branches stripped off by the snow. The other bushes are largely broken up. I realize they will eventually grow back, but I didn’t love any of them and I see no reason to leave it ugly when I can just do something nice.
That project will wait a bit. The need to repave my driveway has also become more urgent. There is a strip that’s gravel and it’s become kind of mushy since the snow melted. When I do that, I’ll also do the sidewalk. If I’m doing those, I should also fix the front stoop. I want to fix the first step, which is too short, and also widen the whole thing. Right now, only one person can stand up there and open the door. It’s cramped and I can’t put anything on the steps. I’d like to add about 18″ on either side, and this will obviously get rid of some of the space to landscape.
That is also a biggish project. I’ll have to get some quotes soon but I’m trying not to think about it for now. I’m kind of overworked lately and the raspberries will be plenty for me to do for now.
We’re down to probably 8″ of snow in the yard. This has made life much more fun for Pi and K who, until this weekend, couldn’t even walk around out there. They love the snow. Pi especially loves to push her tennis ball into the snow, move it around with her nose, pounce on it, grab it, and throw is somewhere else.
The one tree that we lost is still laying in the yard (and will be for a few more weeks). However, the girls are taking advantage of it. They have turned it into a fort. Both love to get in under there and hang out.
While the rest of my world is buried outside, I have four toasty warm trees in my house. About a month ago I bought four dwarf citrus trees: a key lime, meyer lemon, naval orange, and grapefruit. They are pretty small right now, but they will produce fruit. The lemon has just started blossoming and hopefully will give us a few fruits this year!
Another foot-ish fell on us here in our nation’s capital today. The novelty has worn off. The girls and I are both feeling pretty cooped up. Here are some pics.
This really shows the height. You can the top of my blue toter recycling can toward the right and the tip-top of my 4′ picket fence by the trees.
I had measured 32″ on Sunday. Some of that melted and compressed between then and Tuesday. Today, it measured about 42″ which means something like 12-15″ more than last night.
You can see it’s almost up to the windows in front:
But Pi and K are enjoying it even if they can’t run around much.
I have power again and am happily working at home today. Before we get MORE snow on Tuesday, here are a few more pictures from the weekend blizzard, including my lost trees.
The obligatory tape measure picture - 31 inches
Pi and K trying to peer over the snow
The front yard
Pi and K, dwarfed by the drifts
My mighty cedars, might weighed down by the snow
The bent trunk of one that hopefully will survive
Pi and K resting at the Hilton down the road when we were without power on Saturday night
My little house has survived pretty well so far. The power has been out for about 8 hours and will likely be out at least through tomorrow. That means it is cold and dark…but not down the street at the Hilton where the girls and I are camped out! Here it is well-lit and toasty warm.
The yard didn’t survive quite as well. My side yard is lined with very tall cedars. They bowed under the weight of the nearly 3 feet of snow. One is lost - it fell over and broke off at the roots. I knocked snow off as many as I could this morning to save them, wading around in snow up to my hips.
Overall, I feel fortunate. A friend lost 10 large trees. Two broke through the walls of his house and more are resting on the roof. That is a great fear of mine. He has a good attitude about it, which I admire, but in the face of that kind of problem I can’t feel too bad for myself. $99 and a pet deposit solved our problems for the night.
We don’t get a lot of snow in DC, but we’ve had two “storms” in the past week. We got about 8″ over the weekend and it’s snowing again now. Fortunately, tonight’s snow is good snowman snow.
After walking the dogs at about 10pm, we stayed outside and made a snowman and two snowdogs. They helped: the noses are old stale peanut butter cups from 2 Halloweens ago, and Pi helped by eating one off the snowdog.
While building these, someone called the cops on me. He drove up very slow to my address, shone his light on me, and, upon seeing I was not suspicous, he turned around and left with a wave. He was quite amused that the suspicious person was either a girl making a snowman or the snowman itself.
I have now owned my house for two years. I have not given it as much attention as I did in the first year, but it has received some major upgrades this last year. I replaced all the windows on the second floor and put on new siding. I expanded the garden and have started harvesting a lot from the whole property. Decorating is coming along pretty well, too.
This year should bring a bathroom renovation and, depending on how things go, maybe a new driveway / walkway / front porch. Maybe, just maybe, it will also see an end to the kitchen renovation and an end to Cabinet Guy in my life.
When Cabinet Guy was here last time, he lost a piece of cabinet trim. I had three pieces all in the “someday the kitchen will be finished” drawer. When he left, there were only two. He, of course, said he had no idea about the trim.
As I was insulating the dishwasher, I found this missing piece shoved in the back of my cookie sheet cabinet. I’m sure they moved it and just tossed it in somewhere.
With this piece found, I was able to finish putting up the trim that has gone undone since May 2008. It makes a surprisingly big difference. Now the only two things left to do are to fix the end panels that Cabinet Guy messed up (Contractor Sal will do this during his next visit) and to get the right freaking doors. I’m still trying to make Cabinet Guy understand me on that one.
My kitchen doesn’t have a heat vent. There are no walls where one could go but, more importantly, there are no ducts that run near the kitchen. The only way to solve this would be to rip part of the finished basement, run more ducts, and then probably take out a couple cabinets.
I do not need it. The room is pretty much fine, though it gets a bit chillier in the cold part of the winter. Earlier this month, I noticed that it was especially chilly by the dishwasher. I probably missed this before because the dishwasher is near the door and I don’t often stand there unless I’m letting the girls out and the door is open.
There’s not really a draft, but it’s a LOT colder under there. It makes sense since the dishwasher backs to an outisde wall and there isn’t much of anything under the dishwasher between the outside wall and the main kitchen area.
I decided to insulate this. I went to my local True Value. They were very hesitant to give me any insulation. I don’t know why but I had to finally tell them to take me to where their limited selection was so I could decide for myself. I ended up buying an insulating water heater blanket, cutting it up, and stuffing it in to a few gaps on the sides and into all kinds of spaces underneath.
It seems to have worked pretty well. I don’t feel the cold over there like I was. Better yet, I beat the dorks at True Value who thought my idea was a bad one.
