Hey guys! Wow, I haven't posted since late April. That is a new record FOR SURE. Not much has been going on, so I guess I just thought it would be too boring to post anything!! Haha :) This one will probably be fairly boring too, but I'll do a catch-up for May til now. Spoiler alert: Not much has been going on... Just lots of hanging with Guinness and lots of yardwork.
Our Spring and Summer were filled with TONS of yardwork and yard-related things, including some tree removals! We had a few trees that were looking quite dead, and with the storms we got last year we wanted those trees gone before any big storms hit so that our house had a chance of surviving. Here are a few pictures:
Here was the super dead tree that hung over our house! To be more precise, it hung over our bedroom... So that made me really nervous! It looked great last year, but it just died sometime over last Winter and no leaves showed up in the Spring! So, this one is gone now.
Another picture of the very dead tree hanging over our house.
And then on the right of this picture you can see what was left of our huge tree on the side of our driveway... We didn't even know this one was dying, but the tree removal guy pointed out a few things that showed that this tree was dying too, and he gave us a great price on this one since we were having the other tree removed at the same time! They just had to have a crane in our driveway for both, so he gave us a good price. On the left, you can see some huge limbs from both trees laying on our lawn.
Here's a truck carting away a bunch of our tree pieces! They had to make 2 full trips to get all of it hauled away.
Here's a fairly close-up view of the tree stump. Can you see how hollow it is? The tree was fully dying, and it probably would have fallen during one of our big storms. So, it's a relief that's gone! It was so huge it could have landed on our house, or on our neighbor's car or house.
In addition to the tree removals, Kevin and I did a lot of manual labor and ripped out some huge bushes in our front yard that were suuuuper old and not doing well, plus they got demolished by the deer over the winter. This last winter was QUITE snowy and the deer got desperate for food because snow stayed on the ground for many weeks at a time, so they started eating plants and bushes in our neighborhood that they had never eaten over previous years! All of our plants are deer resistant and the deer don't like them or want to eat them, but if they're desperate enough they'll eat almost anything. So, our bushes looked terrible before the deer demolished them, and then there's definitely no way they were going to look healthy again after the deer took them out. So, we spent 2 weekends ripping them out. Here's a picture from a few years ago so you can see what this area looked like (and keep in mind this is BEFORE the deer made them look way worse):
So yeah, this was WAY healthier than they looked when we ripped them out. It's an azalea bush on the left, and there WAS an azalea bush on the right but it died years ago so it had to get ripped out... And we tried to plant another azalea bush in that spot but the deer ate that over winter and killed it. And I forget what kind of bush that is in the middle in front of the window, but that thing hasn't looked healthy the whole time we've lived here.
So, here it is after we ripped out the bushes!! It took us TWO weekends to do it because it was really hard work plus it was like 95 degrees both weekends so we were overheating... We were having to use an ax and a maul (I just learned what a maul is this year!) to break up the massive roots for these bushes.
And we bought 5 little boxwood bushes to put in that area! Boxwoods were literally the ONLY bushes in our neighborhood that didn't get demolished by deer over this last winter... so... they must really hate those. I also read online that they're very easy to take care of. I do see them ALL over our neighborhood so I think they're a safe bet! My fingers are crossed that they thrive in our yard.
And I planted marigolds in front of the boxwoods, because deer also hate marigolds! Those will probably die off once Summer is over though.
Oh and that's a tiny little dwarf Alberta spruce tree on the right side of the pic. They get to be 4 to 6 feet tall which seems pretty perfect for that corner.
Here's some lavender I bought for right by our front steps! Deer supposedly won't eat lavender, and mosquitoes HATE lavender, so I was like YESSSSSS let's plant it by our front porch to keep mosquitoes away!!
And I planted some marigolds next to our walkway too (and you can see the lavender plant just to the right of the stairs!).
Oh and I got this hanging plant for by our garage!
So, besides all the yardwork and tree removals, we haven't done a lot! We've gone to Valley Forge a few times, and I got pictures one of them times! We have figured out that we have to go VERY early in the morning for the heat and humidity to be tolerable, plus there's no crowds if you go there early.
And here we are hanging in our screened room after Valley Forge. Guinness was enjoying some breakfast al fresco:
I hope you have all had a really love Spring and Summer! I'm soooo happy it's almost Fall though!! I'll try to be a lot better about posting, and OF COURSE I will have a Fall Bucket List!!! I'm soooo excited for this crazy Summer heat to be over, and to start enjoying all the amazingness of Fall!!
