The "Tree Fort"

The trees in our yard our young and small. The largest was a maple big enough to climb, and the previous owners had nailed boards on the trunk to serve as steps up to a one-board fort. We enjoyed the small amount of shade it provided.

But this tree had problems. Lots of problems. The neighbors had a large pine tree that grew next to it for many years and crowded it out (according to them), thus it’s gangly, one-sided structure. It had a huge split in it, half the tree looked dead (and more was dying), and fungus was starting to grow on at least one of the branches (which means it’s already rotting). It was so stressed that it produced a massive number of seeds this year.

As Jack Handey once said “If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down?  We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.” This tree was screaming all the time.

A Screaming Tree

We’ll need to get someone in to grind the stump down so we can use the space where the stump is, hopefully to plant another tree.

We’ll need to figure out what to plant in its place. Another maple (fast growing, but if this tree was diseased, probably not a good idea to replace it with another maple), an oak (sloooow to grow), or Justin’s suggestion: A Ginkgo (there are many in the neighborhood. Cool, ancient trees, but not really a shade tree), or …?

The yard somehow looks much larger with the tree down, even though it took up very little space.

Goodbye, tree.

Coming Down

Down

Before

But today, Justin and I built a raised bed garden. We started by cutting the sod out (I had to sharpen my shovel for it to be of any use cutting sod. The grinding wheel comes in handy again!). And we reused the sod in our front yard along the street where there was no grass (long story involving the City of St. Paul and rotting tree roots). I’d never cut sod before and it went much better than I expected.

Justin at Work

We then arranged and leveled two layers of 4×6 posts centered against the back of the garage. We connected them where necessary and drove spikes through them into the ground so they wouldn’t move.

The finished garden is about 16 feet long and only about 20 inches wide. Stacy insisted that she didn’t want a garden that overwhelmed our relatively small yard. We’ll need to think about what we can grow vertically along the back of the garage. And how we can keep the multitude of rabbits, chipmunks, and squirrels out of it. Stupid squirrels.

We filled the garden with dirt from the hole that was dug for the fish pond. It fit perfectly. Stacy even saved some “sludge” that she dredged up from the bottom of the old pond and mixed it into the soil. Yum.

After

What would a bungalow be without a garden? Now we’ll be ready for spring!

Original Pond

This house has a fish pond in the back yard. It’s a little pond; big enough for some gold fish and a fountain in the middle. Stacy liked the pond, especially the sound of the water with the fountain on. But, she decided early on that she really wanted to add another pond, with a waterfall connecting the two.

Last week, she did it, with the help of some strong teenage backs and arms. Matthew and Nathan dug a large hole (Justin was still in the Boundary Waters), large enough to fit a ~200 gallon horse watering tank that we brought from our old farm, plus additional room.

Digging

After a week of digging two hours/day, they finished the three foot deep hole. They moved some of the dirt around the house to spots that needed it in the lawn, but also built up the slope away from the foundation along the side of the house. They worked hard!

Once the hole was in place, Stacy got to work. She and Justin back-filled around the horse tank and finished getting the ground around the pond to the appropriate height. The tank and dirt were then covered with a plastic liner, and the site was now ready for rocks. Stacy used the edge of the tank as a ledge to put rocks around the new pond, and built an upper waterfall that drained down into the upper pond. Also, she created a gap where the upper pond flows into the lower pond.

Stacy Building the Upper Pond

Stacy started to fill the pool with water, and also hooked up the pump and filter system to the upper water fall that runs into the new pool. She spent lots of time arranging the rocks so that they are stable, functional, and attractive. At the upper falls, she used a large piece of slate that Stacy’s parents had brought from their home in Vermont. A beautiful piece to use as the center of the falls!

Stacy spent much of the day arranging rocks that she pulled out of the bottom of the old pond. Luckily, there were lots of them! Unfortunately, there were also several inches of muck on the bottom of the old pond from years of decayed tree debris and fish poop. So, she drained most of the water from the lower pool and moved the fish to the upper pool. She scooped all of the muck out and fed it to the plants in the yard. Yum! Smelly, but good for them.

Muck in Old Pond

Both Ponds

Stacy took a short video of the nearly-completed upper falls in action.

To finish it off, Stacy purchased a few rocks. As the centerpiece of the lower falls, she used Bighorn flag stone with beautiful colors from Montana. She also found some rocks with lots of moss and lichen to make the ponds look a little more natural and aged.

Lower Falls

Lichen and Moss Covered Rocks

So, it’s just about complete. Stacy got close, but ran out of rocks. It’s time to go visit our 14 acres of fields in Wisconsin. There are LOTS of rocks there. Here’s a shot of the nearly finished project. Beautiful!

Beautiful Ponds