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April 16, 2021: Opposite Arbor Day

26 Comments

There was a large, sickly pine in our front yard that a competent crew reduced to dust in about 20 minutes. Surprising how fast they can do that and how much better the view from the front door looks.

26 thoughts on “April 16, 2021: Opposite Arbor Day”

  1. We have a tree in the yard we need to have examined, and possibly removed if it's as dead as we think it is. On the one hand it's a big old tree I'll be sad to go.

    On the other, mowing that part of the yard would get a lot easier.

    1. When I lived in Buffalo I had two gorgeous trees, possibly a hundred years old. They provided great shade. But man. I would spend twice as long picking up sticks than I did mowing. And then more time after burning the sticks.

      1. Our neighbor along our back yard took out two large trees that completely opened up the view out the back. While more sun is kind of nice, I did like that the backyard used to be completely ensconced with trees. It looked like there was a giant head of broccoli behind our house on G-Maps.

        1. We are contemplating planting a couple of citrus trees on our south lawn area. One in a spot where a prior owner had removed a tree (and I dug up remains of the stump and roots and filled in with about a dozen cubic yards of topsoil fill), and one to replace a really scraggly looking pine tree of some sort that the Mrs wants to remove (white fir? it's only about 12 feet tall).

          our property is pretty well ringed by mature trees. Large sycamores at the street, even larger coast redwoods in the back, other things that I don't know the name of elsewhere.

          1. We have a small decorative area in one corner of the backyard. We want to put some form of cherry blossom tree back there, but they all grow bigger than I'd like for the space. I was looking for some sort of dwarf versoin, but the only ones I've found are the "weeping" variety and I've never really liked the way those look.

                1. Ours has been outstanding for years now. When we first planted it, the next year it snapped off at the base (the trunk had been damaged and a strong storm did the rest) and eventually a volunteer came up from the root ball. When it just kept going with very little branching, I reluctantly topped it to see what would happen. It has an odd "hand" like trunk now, but it recovered quite well and is very health. Based on FB memories, it blooms like clockwork ~April 1, and then we have heavy drifting along our driveway in the next week.

      2. We have a bunch of cottonwood trees in our yard. They provide great shade for our yard, but they are the nastiest trees--sticks are constantly falling from them, then there's the sticky stuff that falls off, then the cotton blows around for a while, and about a month later leaves start falling and continue for a couple months. We had three removed from our front yard and would like to remove more eventually.

        1. We have a GINORMOUS cottonwood tree in our front yard. We love it and it shades the front half of the house in the summer, keeping us cool. It does get annoying at times, though. Ours doesn't release cotton (which I think means it's a male?), but it does all those other things.

          We also have to be sure to get it trimmed regularly because the wood is very soft, which means it's prone to dropping sizeable branches in the wind.

        2. We have oaks and they are filthy trees. It starts with the yellow pollen coating everything in the spring. Any little breeze will shed twigs over the lawn all summer. Then in late summer the acorns start falling. Sometimes they drop on the roof so fast it sounds like a hailstorm. And after the acorns the leaves start falling. The white oaks are nice enough to drop all their leaves within a few weeks, but the red oaks hang on and drop theirs slowly all winter and into spring, when it's time for the pollen to start again.

          1. Sounds like your tree(s) at least doesn't have wasp gall, like the neighbors (and every other oak around here) -- those things dropping into the lawn are much more annoying than acorns. Oh, and oak allergies.

          2. at our first house in Illinois, we had some sort of noxious berry tree in our back yard, near the house. Purple-ish mess everywhere.

            one of our neighbors here has a couple large Live Oak [correction: valley oak?] trees behind our back fence, which drops a metric shitton of acorns. The trees are big enough that the falling acorns are basically falling ordnance.

            1. That reminds me, I grew up in Ohio and you didn't have to look far to find a buckeye tree which are pretty nasty. You've likely seen a buckeye nut, but when they come off the tree they're covered in a pulpy fruit with a tough skin and they're just a few inches around so they make great projectiles. We had some epic buckeye fights there back in the day. But almost everything about buckeye trees is toxic to some degree.

    2. I have a linden tree in the back yard that is in tough shape. Probably will need to be removed. I have two huge ash trees in the back yard. Huge. About a block away, there are three ash trees that the city is going to cut down because... (probably ash borers).

    3. When we bought our house, our pretty tiny backyard contained an apple, a cherry, and a plum tree (and all the fruit was on the tart side). Sadly, the apple is the only one left, but it has opened up more room for Honest Abe to play soccer and baseball.

  2. Nearly 24 hours after my 2nd Pfizer shot. Sore arm, a little stiffness in my neck, but it's hard to say if that's a symptom of the shot. I noticed an odd mouth dryness last night, too. Otherwise, doing pretty well.

    1. Mrs Runner had Moderna #2 yesterday and is doing well today. She volunteered at the local mass vaccination again yesterday and they did 4700 shots, pausing for a photo for their cumulative 50,000th shot as well.

      1. I'm heading to get Moderna #2 in half an hour. I've spent this week drinking nothing but water and oj (and coffee, or I'd be a mess) to give myself the best chance possible of not getting laid out.

    2. Now at 30 hours after the shot. Running a fever slightly above 100F and chills. Not the worst I've ever felt, but not feeling great right now.

      1. I'm 6 hours past and have very slight soreness but didn't experience the sudden tiredness of the first shot. I assume that means tomorrow I'll be laid out. I decided to say screw it and have one glass of a nice scotch before going back to my "crap load of water" regimen.

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