Never Ending House Maintenance

Here's the branch that has me worried.....

So after one of the windy storms came through, the Mulberry tree in the back yard had a broken branch in the middle. I called around to find someone who could come cut it out and hopefully save the tree.  

The Tree Guys came and trimmed a few branches and got the big limb off the center. 

They brought in a good sized cherry picker, so the guy in the basket could get up in the tree. 

This is where the swings that the kids all love so much and it makes a really good shady place for Dilly's sandbox. 

They ended up putting in two cable braces, that will hopefully keep any other limbs from swaying too far and breaking off. 

Here's the finished job. Now they'll trim a few branches from the maple tree out front to get away from the house a little bit better. And it was only, $1950.00 it's a lot, but it was a pretty big job too. 

And we had the folks from Affordable Heating and Cooling come out and give the furnace a once over before winter hits. 

We had a capacitor that tested bad, so had it replaced, then the tech took a look at the heat exchanger...uh boy....

see all that crud?  It's not supposed to be there....

That got all cleaned up and the furnace is ready for the cold weather, and for only another $470. Worth every penny. I won't have to worry about no heat on the coldest day of the year!

 

It's Supposed to Be Better

SO, this is what's been going on in our small town. We're getting fiber optic that will replace our broadband internet service.  This #$%-*! was locating lines and came into our fenced yard without any notice and left the gate open! I nearly had a heart attack when Hubs let the dogs out and they all headed for the open gate!!! I was totally PISSED...yes I called the guy bad names. He's lucky no dogs went far or were injured. 

They're digging holes and running lines all over town! All I know is it's going to increase my internet bill. It better be a lot better, because what we have now is pretty darn good.

 Then today we had a little power outage. A tree up the street at Betty Stopko's house split in two and landed on the power line! I was driving home and saw it fall!!

I zoomed in a little bit on this picture and you can see the half of the tree laying over.

Glad it didn't take the power folks long to get it going again! Nothing like those poor folks on the East coast and on the Louisiana coast. 

And I'm working on this quilt now. More to come about it!

Clean Up

 

SO DD came and helped me with the last of the branches in the neighbors yards.

Jean & Ben helped me on Saturday-my friend loaned me a little chain saw to cut up the big stuff-it worked great!

Ben took over the saw and we all moved the branches over to our yard. I'll let them be piled up for now. 

The neighbor's garden really took a hit. They were an older couple and they both passed away recently, so I don't really know if their family cares about the garden, but I feel better having the tree out of their yard.

I'm thankful that we only had the one big tree part. SO many other folks had a lot more damage to their trees.

Now I have a pretty big burn pile for the next backyard bonfire.  And I'm so glad to hear that my folks got power back!!

Pallet Wood Christmas Trees

 SO, I saw these trees on Pinterest, Like These from Old & New Homestyle Boutique....
 and thought, Hey! I have some pallets out in the yard! SO I plugged in the saw and

Drew a line to follow in the shape of a triangle...Oh I mean a Tree!

My trusty reciprocating saw cut through these pallets like butter! I wasn't aiming for perfection, so even better!!

Then I nailed the boards that were loose to the center upright board.

And pulled off the boards from the back/underside of the pallet. Maybe I'll make something out of those too!

 There! One done!

 

But if you noticed, there are two sides left that will make another tree! I just lined them up so the top was pointy, and used a few long screws to put them together.

And TA-DA! In about 1 hour I have two trees. They are going to look great in the flower beds out front! I think I'll put some lights on them too! Pictures in a month or so!