Shaking the Trees

Monday, a Nor'Easter dropped about 8-10 inches of snow on the Quarter Acre. the snow was an odd, pasty consistency that stuck really well to trees and shrubs and really bent them over but it was not that heavy to shovel. I went out just after dinner to move some snow from the end of the driveway, after a late plow run, and noticed that the trees and shrubs in front of the house were seriously laden.

The beautiful Kusa Dogwood just outside of our front door was in serious danger of collapsing from its snow cover. For some reason, neither Mrs. Agricola nor I had noticed during the day how bowed and very much in danger it was of losing one of its main leaders. In order to prevent losing this tree I started shaking it with my shovel to knock the snow out of it and lessen its load. Snow was falling all around me, and I had a slight worry, in the back of my mind, that maybe, just maybe, the shaking would break the tree and I'd get nailed by a big snow-covered branch. The shaking seemed to work, caused no further damage, and this morning the leader seemed to regain its more typical, vertical alignment.

I also shook a Rose of Sharon right in front of the house that typically stands about 12 feet high. With it's snow cover it was bent nearly in half. Now, Rose of Sharons are tough, willowy trees that grow like weeds. I'm not a huge fan of them, but this one is pretty large and shields the house from the sun so I gave it some good shakes to release some weight. It too returned to it's normal verticality.

I've shoveled lots of walks and driveways in my day but never actually shoveled trees. I've got a thing for trees though and the Kusa, in particular, is an attractive and valuable specimen that would would have been terrible to lose due to storm, or more accurately, post-storm damage. Add tree shaking to the list of homeowner's responsibilities,

Big Project

Last month (8 - 12 October) Mrs. Agricola and I built a patio in the back of the Quarter Acre. We purchased our materials, staked out and squared the site on 6 October, barely touched it the following day due to a social commitment and then began excavating in earnest on Monday the eighth. We moved much dirt that first day and sifted a large amount of it in order to have good loam to use for back filling and other, future projects. The second day, Tuesday, of the project saw us moving more dirt and feeling some doubt as to our sanity for undertaking this big project. Sand and gravel were delivered on this day as well.

The paving stones were delivered Wednesday, Day 3, and dropped at the edge of the work site. By the late morning we had finished our excavations and started the leveling and sloping process. This, by far was the most tedious part of the job. Once we had the sub surface smooth and sloped we began building up a 2 inch gravel base on which we continued to check the grade before we compacted it and applied a second 2 inch gravel layer that we also compacted.



Thursday morning, Day 4, we started laying sand and placing bricks following a pattern that Mrs. Agricola applied to a nicely done scale drawing of the site. Mrs. A actually did much of the stone-laying, and played a pivotal role in this project -- without her help I alone never would have been able to finish this project in one week. The stones were in place by Thursday afternoon, and only finishing touches remained.

Friday, we finished up by cutting some stones to fit in the layout and sliced up others to close a small gap around our steps. I may be proudest of this aspect of the job because the gap was small -- due to Mrs. A's precise design and excellent placement. The slices I made and placed in the gap make the patio look very finished.



Aside from the sheer physicality of the project (which I loved, seeing as how I'm an office worker who longs to work with my hands) some other challenges were the weather -- all week it rained, or threatened to rain and we had to battle the elements.



In-ground sprinkler pipes are also tricky when one does not mark them well. I gouged one pipe with a shovel, but had it patched up in about an hour -- including a run to the hardware store for parts. As I was securing the the edging brace that surrounds the entire structure and helps to hold it all together I spiked the same hose (see above for marking hoses well). That was a brutal thing to fix because I spiked it very close to the edge of the patio and had to dig up a chunk of lawn in order to reach it and have any room in which to work. . . I skinned my knuckles so badly working to cut the pipe that there was blood in the water at the bottom of the hole I'd excavated to do the work on the pipes. Another challenge was that while laying the stones it was raining. Our gloves were quickly soaked and useless for carrying the stones. Going glove-less exposed our fingers to sandy bricks. The grit really cut up fingertips and left behind some nice callouses -- after a painful week of healing.

That said, this was an awesome project. I used four vacation days to complete it. I got to be around my wife and kids nearly around the clock. Despite the messy weather my kids played outside nearly all day every day. We have a nice patio that will permit better use of the space behind our house and reduce the amount of muck dragged into the house from the yard -- which in this area was always damp because it's on the north side of the house and quite shady. I honestly think I missed my calling in life -- masonry seems very appealing to me right now -- and am glad that I did this project, it was an amazing experience. I got to use shovels, wheel barrows, a plate compactor, sledge hammers, stone cutters, grub hoes . . . fun!

We'd been talking about this project for a while and we finally did it. Both Mrs. A and I had a huge sense of accomplishment from conceiving, executing and completing this project and are a better team for having done it together. This type of thing is one of the reasons we moved to the 'burbs and we can't wait for the next big project.



Patio Specs
The patio is 22 feet long and ranges in depth from 4 feet at the narrowest part to 8.5 feet at the widest with a large section of it at one end being 7.5 feet wide. The depth of the bed at the edge closest to the house is 5 inches below grade. The depth of the bed on the edge furthest from the house is 7 inches below grade -- the slope is about 1/4 inch/foot. The patio conforms to the contour of the land and has a similar slope along its length. At the high edge of the patio the stones are about 1.5 inches above grade and at the low end of the grade they are flush with the lawn. We used concrete paver stones from Ideal -- a local manufacturer. We spread 2 yards of gravel into the hole and about 3/4 of a yard of sand as the stone bed. Material came from a locally based supplier of such stuff. The total cost of the project, including material, rental equipment and some new tools was about $1,600.00 -- I don't think a contractor would have done it for less than $3,000.00.

Ingenuity Gone Wrong

To gain access to the attic of Quarter Acre we use fold-away stairs. I don't know how or when this stairway was developed, but it definitely strikes me as a bit of nifty American ingenuity. The door -- which is in the ceiling and faces the floor below is attached to the frame with some hinges so that it pivots up and down. On top of the door panel, inside of the attic, is a set of stairs, comprised of three parts, each attached to the other with hinges so that all pieces lie flush on top of one another and with the back of the door.

In this way about 7.5 feet of rise, and probably 9 feet of run fit into a footprint 4 feet long and 2 feet wide. The real business end of the stairs though is the pair of heavy springs and folding iron arms that run along the sides of the main stair section. The metal arms offer rigidity to the whole structure when it's opened. The springs, I learned this afternoon, actually keep the whole thing from falling open. I discovered this when one the springs wrenched the metal arm out of the frame, ripping one bolt completely out of the wood and bending the other.

One of the springs never laid flush with the back of the door, it always hung up over the top of the main portion of the stairs (it now strikes me that the stairway may not be plumb, and therefore was racking). I would move it off of the stair and align it -- no big deal, until this afternoon. The whole episode startled me and then freaked me out -- had the other bolt that holds the arm in place sheared out of the wood like its neighbor I might have been hit in the face with the whole apparatus.

I pulled the arm out of the frame and detached the spring. I left the door down -- because it would no longer stay up -- and cut two pieces of 1x3 that I screwed into the ceiling -- through the molding of the door into the frame -- with high quality screws securer the door. Now I, or Mrs. Agricola will begin calling around for prices on these doors and add another to-do to our list to replace our "bit of nifty of American ingenuity."

Tree Service

Earlier this week the remnants of some named-tropical-depression (Barry, I think) came through the area and brought some funky, humid air, lots of rain and some moderate winds.* Moderate though they seemed, the winds, took down a large chunk of a tree in my neighbor's yard. The felled-section landed on his house. It didn't seem to do much damage but the tree whole needed to be removed. This morning, a tree crew showed up and began cutting.

Twenty years ago (wow!), as a callow youth, my first job was working on a tree crew. My Mother's, first cousin's in-laws (if that's not a Boston-familial connection chain . . . ) owned a tree company in the Boston area. I remember being too young to work, but people telling me that when I turned 16 I'd go work for that crew -- and so I did.

It was hot, dirty, dangerous, hard work. It brought me in touch with some unsavory types (gun charges, manslaughter charges) and afforded me the opportunity to drive trucks (when legal), use chainsaws, chippers, stumpers and bring my lunch to work in a cooler. One summer I got hit in the head and got 30 stitches. I was tanned. I was strong. My hands were hard and my arms were covered in scratches. I earned $8/hr, $12/hr for overtime. Basically it was the best job that any 16 year old could ever ask for.

It also taught me the value of a buck, how hard it is to earn a living and what it means to work. Some days, like this morning, I miss that job even though it would be unrealistic for me, at this point in my life, to go and do that work. But it was honest labor, with tangible results that got me outside, kept me active and put cash in my pocket. Working in advertising, you play a big game, all the time -- jacking your salary by moving from job to job producing disposable paper and electronic deliverables. It has its moments, it can be hard in terms of stress, and it can be fun, sometimes, but it's a service based industry with few tangible results.

Of course, when we are successful our clients move units, post profits, see their stock go up, spend more money with us, we profit etc. etc. but it's all, on many levels, theoretical. I take pride in successfully executed campaigns that move the needle; but, I guarantee that I'll remember the day we took down about 360 feet of White Oaks (6 trees on a piece of property -- and the only day I ever felt bad about how I earned my money because the trees were healthy and beautiful) longer than I'll ever remember some campaign selling servers. Am I glorifying my teenage work experience? Of course I am, but it has stood me in good stead, and taught me some of the most important lessons of my life.

*How we can have a named storm already, prior to Hurricane Season, is beyond me. I think it's the result of people with an axe to grind over global warming who start naming every moderately strong tropical system that blooms anywhere near hurricane season, but that's a post for another time.