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Somebody went berserk in our side yard last night and attacked 3 of the 5 trees we’ve been growing to shade the south side of the house. They were snapped in half—all in the same way in the same spot on their poor, young trunks.
The ones on the ends are/were birches that my dad raised. And the one in the middle is/was the hornbeam I searched high and low for last year.
I was able to order another hornbeam, though of course we’ll be starting all over in trying to convince the plant take on this new job. We’re trying to figure out how to make sure this destruction doesn’t happen again. And, well, there’s really no way to do so. We live in the city off a major street near the alley, and our side yard is an unusual, inviting spot for anyone looking to duck away from attention momentarily. One night the cops came ringing the doorbell just after midnight asking if they could look in our back yard because they’d seen someone come running out of this area; they suspected the kid had tossed something illegal over the fence separating the side yard and the back yard. So I guess we could fence it all in, but I’m resisting taking this route because I think it would change the nature of the property and the neighborhood. But what if the neighborhood has changed already? Of course, kids swipe my flowers all the time, and that irks a little, but it’s probably because mine is one of the few houses on the street with flowers. And there was the baluster-kicking. Sigh. We’re planning now to put up a security light, but it’s a trick to make sure it doesn’t bother our neighbor. It just makes me so sad that people can be so pointlessly mean. Most likely it was just a thoughtless strike from an inconsiderate person with too many problems to think about others. But oh, poor trees.
Whew, traveling and visiting and being visited has been a jubilant diversion. Nothing’s better than hanging out with friends and making meals that include sauce from our own garden tomatoes, and homegrown garlic and peppers, and even a lemon from our dear little potted lemon tree.
Now back to everyday life. Google Maps updated its shots recently, so I can post this pic of the relatively new roof.
Note the asymmetry—one side of the house has a square bay and the other has a half-octagon bumpout. There wasn’t anything on either side when this was built, so I guess the side with the diagonal windows was wise about the future.
In other news, the city decided to chop down our front tree. We’ve been wondering whether it was diseased and I guess this settles it. It was an ash, and this area has had emerald ash borer problems, so maybe that was the culprit. Now I get to lobby hard for a new tree (or two, that would be nice) and I also got 20-some gallons of mulch out of the stump grindings I came home to tonight. Free mulch!
When this house was built, it was the only one on this side of the street. Even as the neighborhood filled in around it, it remained the closest house to the main street for more than 50 years. In the 60s, the daughter of the owner built a house to the south, but still it remained far enough away to let the sun fill the bay window and heat the brick. And crack the brick and peel the paint on the window trim. So as long as we’ve been here we’ve been trying to come up with ways to shield the house from the sun in summer and let it warm the interior in winter. We built a trellis in front of a big blank wall where a tree used to grow too close. And last year we planted a row of birches on the south side. But then the biggest one, the one in the middle, cracked in a storm. So I’ve been trying to find the perfect tree to replace it. And I finally settled on the Frans Fontaine cultivar of the European Hornbeam. It is a slow-growing, columnar tree that grows to about 15 feet wide and 35 tall (perfect for our area that is 13 feet between houses, with our house being about 25 feet at the roofline). After much searching and a lengthy back-and-forth with the local nursery, I finally ordered one from Forestfarm. And it arrived the other day! And it is 7 feet tall (a foot taller than expected)! And it looks great and is chilling in a shaded area for a few days before being planted. Here it is in the living room after arrival.
And chilling on the deck with the handyman-made lattice for the front and side porches.
And a closeup of the leaves.
And, finally, in its new pad.
Our Xmas visits were happy and indulgent, and we’re looking forward to more for New Year’s—but here at home today I am having a very hard time. I finally checked on the four sashes I’d stowed in the back bedroom while the glazing dried in the hope that I could paint and install them finally. And …
One of the pieces of glass I installed—the best, waviest one from the original stock—is cracked. I don’t know why. I don’t know when. And there’s nothing I can do but cry over it. And install new stuff and hope it wasn’t something I did that made it crack. I’m just crushed.
And then, because it was a sunny day at last, I went out to do the yard cleanup I never did because of my surgery. And I found this:
The biggest tree—the middle tree—in the row of birches we planted in the spring to shade the house. Cracked at the base. Now there were very high winds over the weekend while we were out of town. But … this was the one we’d been saving in the back lot for years in anticipation of this project.
Now I just don’t have the heart to go ahead with anything. Wake me up in May.
