Treemendous Trees

It would have been lovely if someone could have pointed out that it's October already.  How did that happen?  When did that happen? (Sometime between Friday and Saturday, I imagine).   



It seems like the leaves changed color and started dropping overnight!

The other day the bay was so calm (which is rare for Lake Superior), and the surface of the water looked like a mirror, reflecting all of the vibrancy of the nearby trees.  The water just glowed shades of gold and orange.  It was so beautiful and I almost sprinted back to the house for my camera to snap a photo for Instagram or the blog, but I decided to just enjoy it.

I've been trying to live in the moment more.

Yesterday I did manage to snap a few photos of the trees - but only because I was outside photographing a DIY project in a makeshift set I made.  I needed something larger than my normal backdrops, so I morlocked our old turquoise front door out of the garage but because I could only manhandle it so far, I set up shop in a fairly visible spot where everyone who drove or walked by could see me.  Feeling embarrassed that I was taking photos of a cleaning product in a pile of dog kibble on top of an old door (I am an artist, lol), every time someone went by I either sprinted toward the garage and hid, or started taking photos of the trees, which seemed less weird than what I was doing.  

Gosh, the trees are pretty!   
 
In addition to our large blue spruce (my favorite), we've got some baby blue spruces closer to the garage.  Of course there is also a lot of cedar - in addition to the wee ones we planted.  There's a huge white pine and tons of birch trees.  It's a really good mix, encircling three sides of our property.

But reading this infographic by TruGreen really made me panic...

 

Trees only live 50-300 years?!?  Our neighbor is supposedly cutting some dead trees between our property this fall and I have this recurring nightmare that I'll wake up and she'll have clear cut the land between our homes entirely. 

Then everyone will definitely know all of the weird stuff I get up to.

And did you see that each of us pretty much consumes a whole tree every year?  Wow.

Thanks to my last post with TruGreen, I've still been thinking about our property and the trees we have.  As a little update: thanks to their encouragement, I'm going to be pruning our existing cedar hedges this weekend (last month I pruned the raspberries).  As per their advice - and advice from readers! - I'll also be bundling up our little newly planted cedars this year so the harsh winter wind that whips off the lake won't parch the poor little guys.

I was happy to collaborate with TruGreen again because I really owe them one - thanks to some of the FREE tips I picked up from their website, I stopped scalping my poor lawn and raised the blade on the riding lawn mower so now when I cut the grass, it stills looks green - not brown - when I'm done.  This means I'm mowing more frequently, but the lawn is looking better and better - perhaps you noticed in Friday's post?  It's looking more lush.  Although I've abandoned weed whacking around the shore and fire pit (perhaps you noticed that too, haha), thanks to TruGreen I haven't given up on lawn cutting just yet, like I normally do.  Instead of letting it grow super long before that first snowfall, I'm following their advice for winter prep: "after grass stops growing, cut the lawn a final time at one setting lower than normal. This will reduce matting of the turf over winter and reduce the occurrence of snow mould problems." 

TruGreen has so many great resources on their website and also an opportunity for a quote to create a customized plan for your yard and trees, to prep them for winter and keep them healthy.  Whether you're interested in some professional help (because you'd like to branch out in your yard maintenance), or just looking to soak up some free information like me, hop on over and root around their site.

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of TruGreen.ca.  The opinions, terrible puns, meandering digressions, turquoise-laden photos, and text are all mine.  The crab apples, however, are my Mom's.  She brought over a giant bag one day for no reason whatsoever so I photographed them on a turquoise background (naturally) and now I guess I'll be looking up crab apply jelly recipes...?  I think she wants to help with "Project Tanya Embraces Fall".

Losing Our Shore to Lake Superior + Learning to Care for Our Lawn and Property

Hubby is mildly obsessed with Google Earth and he's getting me hooked on exploring our neighborhood from the sky.  From our seemingly tidy neighbour's secret stash of junk hidden in the forest behind his house (busted!), to a landlocked shack deep in the woods, it's really interesting getting a bird's eye view of the area!  Truthfully though, Hubby spends most of his time examining our own property, comparing current aerial shots we took with older logged images to keep tabs on the rate of our shore erosion. 

Lake Superior has wreaked havoc on the properties of many of our neighbours, who have had to hire out expensive reconstruction.  The higher water levels are to blame and they've caught even seasoned lake lifers by surprise.  We've been somewhat sheltered from the damage because of our location on the bay, but we're still going to have to devise a plan for next year to keep our lawn from getting washed away.  Living lakeside is amazing, but we weren't prepared for the extra work of owning a lakeside property (#notcomplaining)! 

Meanwhile, last year Hubby noticed another trend while spying on our house: thanks to Szuka, our lawn had such bad brown spots, you can quite literally see them from space!  We're pretty rough on the lawn too though: we frequently leave stuff lying around so the lawn dies underneath and when we finally cut the lawn, inevitably it's too short!  Oh yeah, I also drove across the lawn in our Ram 2500, loaded with thousands of pounds of gravel, and you can still see the faint tire treads. 

With the combined efforts of our complete landscaping ineptitude, Szuka's bladder, and the black bear that forced our hand and made it necessary to chop down two beautiful apple trees, we kind of made our property worse the first couple of years we lived here (despite feeling swamped with yard work)...

I'm sure neighbors wondered what the heck we were doing with our time to still have such a crummy looking yard!  Even though we're pretty rural, our neighborhood is changing: smaller homes and cottages are regularly torn down to built giant houses - one of our neighbors supposedly spent $100,000 on landscaping alone!  Everyone who walks by our house peers down our driveway and frowns, so I have this sinking suspicion they think we're dragging down property values.

We're trying to improve, but we're not used to having any land so it's taking us some time to get the hang of it!  We were spoiled in the townhouse because the condo hired out lawn care so we didn't even own a lawn mower!  We planted a cute little bush and some lily of the valley flowers but that was it.  We'd make a fruit smoothie and watch someone else cut our lawn from behind the sheer curtains.  We have big plans for next year, but this year we chipped away at some outdoor projects: we finally fixed the riding lawn mower so we cut the lawn weekly instead of monthly (go us!).

We replaced the crumbling fire pit with our new modern DIY fire pit, finally got rid of the geese for good with a rope fence, removed some rotting flower beds, and finished cleaning up all of the junk and debris left on the property by the former owner - including that 1960s boat we kept moving around the yard, killing the grass!  Just this weekend we even pruned our overgrown raspberry bushes.

I'm going to develop a green thumb, just you watch.  Once I can keep a shrub alive, I'm getting chickens.

In our most victorious bout of landscaping, we planted four teeny, tiny cedar trees!  The goal is to eventually line the entire property with them - including where we tore down the apple trees - to fill in the natural tree line and create a perfectly private backyard.

Womp, womp, womp.

Seriously - those cedars looked WAY bigger when we brought them home in the truck.  Well, we're getting there!  Fifteen years from now we'll be happy we started today.

We have the enthusiasm, but it's clear we need a little guidance.

When TruGreen reached out, I was really interested in their services and expertise - especially the tree and shrub care.  Even itty bitty trees are expensive, so many of the TruGreen services, like seasonal insect control and a spring dormant oil application, help protect that investment - and they're essential for protecting old growth.  TruGreen specializes in providing the nourishment trees and shrubs need to grow, essential if your plan is to block out nosy neighbors as quickly as possible.  TruGreen also deals with pest control and tackles pressing problems like the Emerald Ash Borer.  I learned so much about what my trees need to be healthy from perusing the website. 

 
Until I cut my own lawn, I never realized how easy it is to completely destroy it with improper maintenance.  My crime was letting it grown too long, then cutting it too short.  I'm slowly getting the hang of it (although Hubby and I still bicker over the height of the lawn mower blades).  We've never fertilized or used anything on our lawn, which I realize now is a huge mistake.  We can really see in our aerial snooping just how dry and crunchy our poor lawn is.  With TruGreen, lawn care is a science, with different services tailored to ensuring a weed-free, lush lawn.  I love that they actually customize a plan for a specific lawn - it's not a one-size-fits-all service, which is the key to getting great results.  Plus, all natural and organic services are available - which is always a way to win me over!

Even if you're not in a position to hire professionals to help you out - or there isn't a service available in your area - TruGreen has such a great learning centre and I've picked up some great tips for mowing the lawn!  It turns out there's a word for what I was doing: "scalping" my lawn (oops).  As well, now that it's finally running, our old beast of a lawn mower could use some maintenance to ensure we aren't butchering the lawn each time we cut the grass.  I learned that excessive clippings can be a sign of not mowing enough - yep, guilty!  Plus, I didn't realize there were actually different mowing suggestions (like how short to cut it) outlined for different types of grass - seriously, a gorgeous lawn takes some know-how!  Luckily the TruGreen team can put together a customized plan for achieving that perfect lawn that will turn neighbour's heads - in a good way!

If you've been struggling with your lawn maintenance or trees and shrubbery, or just need some customized advice to help your yard looks its best, see if there's a TruGreen in your area and get a quote.

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of TruGreen.ca.  The opinions, meandering digressions, sad little cedars, and text are all mine.

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Modern DIY Welded Fire Pit (Our Fire Pit Makeover)

Between shoveling two 3/4 tonne truckloads of gravel (one in the pouring rain before a birthday party, the other at midnight in the pitch black) and getting bit by a German Shepard while buying supplies, you'd think I'd be cursing this DIY fire pit - but I can't wipe the goody grin off my face!  I love how our modern, welded fire pit turned out and, despite some back breaking manual labor, it was surprisingly easy to make over our fire pit.

Hubby and I readily admit that neither of us are very adept at landscaping or gardening.  The first summer we lived here we were really focused on updating the interior and last summer we were barely here (and when we were, we were working on our bathroom reno - the "reveal" is going to pop up on the blog soon!).  This year we originally had an ambitious summer to-do list but then decided: hey, you know what's better than weeding and painting and digging around, trying to repair our shoreline and remove our horrible dock?  Making s'mores and watching the sunset! 



But we needed somewhere nice to make our s'mores and do our sunset watching, because our old fire pit was too janky!

The fire pit is positioned in the center of our lawn, which I like, but having this crumbling fire pit front and center ruined the lake view from the house.  Although we've used it a lot over the years, I hated that the fire pit was just plonked down in the grass because I was always stressing out about ticks.  It was not a very inviting outdoor space.

 
We mulled over some fire pit landscaping options and decided anything involving paving stones or lock stone was silly because our lawn, in addition to sloping toward the water, is very lumpy.  The previous owner had tried lock stone, but it just sunk into the lawn and grass grew over it.  We needed something cheap and plentiful that could move with the ground.  Enter: gravel!

Simple Fire Pit Zen Garden - Supplies:

• Dolomite Gravel
• Landscaping Fabric
• 2 x 4 Pressure-treated Lumber (We Used Eight, 6 Foot Lengths)
• Scrap Lumber 
• Screws (3")
• Drill

Simple Fire Pit Zen Garden - Steps:

First we created a little "box" out of 2 by 4 pressure treated lumber we found in the garage.  Instead of buying longer lengths, we just attached two lengths together with screws and scrap wood:

We dug up and transplanted the sod (waste not, want not), and then laid down some landscaping material to prevent weeds from peeking through:

Then we hauled home two, 3/4 tonne truck loads of dolomite, which is a nice white gravel.  Weaving my way through the trees and parking the truck on the lawn was SO much fun.  Shoveling 5,280 pounds (!) of gravel was slightly less fun but my arms feel super muscley now so I can't complain.

You've already caught a sneak peek of the modern fire pit we built for what is essentially an adult-sized sandbox.  I started a Pinterest board devoted to plants, exteriors and landscaping and started pinning a lot of fire pit designs.  I stumbled across this pin and tracked it back to The Brick House (I miss Morgan's blogging so much!).  Hubby and I both loved the modern look of her welded fire pit, so we decided to make our own - with one minor alteration to her design.

How to Weld a Modern Fit Pit - Supplies:

• Lincoln Flux Core Wire Feed Electric Welder
• Welding Mask
• Welding Gloves (or any Full Leather Work Glove)
• Coveralls (Flame Resistant is Ideal)
• 1/8" Metal Sheet
• Four 36" x 18"
• Three 36" lengths of angle iron, square tube, or whatever scraps, for bracing
• Magentic Welding Holders
• Rust-Oleum's High Heat Enamel Spray Paint in Aged Copper

We went to a local steel fabricator for the metal and had them cut all of the pieces we needed to size, making this project a LOT easier.  That's where I got a little too friendly with a German Shepard - who did not want to be friends.

How to Weld a Modern Fire Pit - Steps:

To start the box, Hubby laid one piece on the floor and held the other one upright with the magnets - which are really, really handy.  He tack welded it into place on both the inside and outside just to hold it in position:

He continued to tack all the sides in place until the box was assembled.

Once it was tacked, he laid it down and confirmed it was square by using a tape measure.  Then he proceeded to weld the whole seam, inside and out.

Welding this fire pit was really easy and took so little time - no more than a couple of hours.

Before I show you any more, Hubby would like me to remind you that he's not a professional welder, and has not actually turned on our welding machine for years.  I think he did a wonderful job, but he sees imperfections.  I just see s'mores and sunsets, baby.

Instead affixing steel rods in the corner, like Morgan did, we added cross bracing inside the box.  This adds some strength and ensured that the box stayed square when we awkwardly moved it from the garage down the hill to the fire pit.  Jeesh, this thing is heavy.  The process for the cross bracing was the same: check for square, hold the braces in place with magnets, tack them in place, and then completely weld them.

This is what the finished, unpainted, welded fire pit looked like:

I really loved the natural patina of the metal and didn't mind that it would quickly rust, but Hubby was adamant that we paint it.  It didn't take long for our old fire pit to rust completely through, so he wanted to protect this new fire pit and keep it looking good for as long as possible.

I decided to try Rust-Oleum's High Heat Ultra Enamel Spray Paint in Aged Copper, although matte black would have looked sharp too.

I'd love four Adirondack chairs encircling our new modern fire pit, but for photographs I hauled out my Eames score.  I could not restore the chrome legs, so I painted them matte black. 

See why I love our modern fire pit so much?  I ogle it from the kitchen window every morning and admired it while we canoed around the bay last night.

The gravel is working out perfectly.  I used a rake to level it as best I could, and it was like playing in a giant zen garden.  No grass or weeds have poked through and I love that I no longer have to sit with blades of grass tickling my ankles!  I'm planning on planting some mosquito deterring plants around the fire pit area.

Yep, I'm pretty smitten with our modern, DIY welded fire pit.  If you need me this summer, you know where to find me!  Bring marshmallows.

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