After last weekend’s unexpected snowfall (dumping a good 10″ of snow on my yard), I was really setback regarding the various necessary fall clean-up tasks for my yard. I have a fence that was partially damaged during the recent “Cat 3 Hurricane” that blew through Minnesota and my pool as still open.
The open pool was truly a mistake on my part. No reasonable Minnesotan still has their in-ground pool open. But, I always like to wait until the first weekend in November to close the pool. Since there are so many months that a pool is closed in Minnesota, I like to run it as long as possible – which helps with the general cleanliness upon opening. I don’t keep it up to temperature, so it would be impossible to use. But it is running through the filter – which is a minimal expense compared to the chemicals it requires to open a swampy pool in the spring.
This year – that plan had a major flaw. I was NOT expecting the big snowfall last week and the following week of below average temperatures. This meant I would need to battle both snow and cold to get the pool closed.
It only took me a few glances to figure out that closing the pool wasn’t the only thing I needed to take care of this past weekend.
While draining the pool, I had to route my tubing toward the back of the yard – to the creek that runs along the rear of my property. Normally I will run this to the street in the front yard, but the snow and leaves in the gutters would have resulted in my whole block being flooded.
As I wound my tubing toward the fence along the backyard, I caught the sight of my large willow tree and noticed that it wasn’t looking so good. At some point during the week, a major part of the tree toppled over – landing along my neighbor’s back fence and across the public walking path that borders my property line. I can only imagine how many of the local residents were all pissed off that a big tree was blocking their path, as they took their various dogs for a walk. I hadn’t noticed the condition of the tree earlier in the week, due to its line-of-sight from my windows and that most of the damage was hidden from view.
This tree is massive – with a good 5 foot diameter base. The largest part of it ended up in my neighbor’s yard, breaking up my fence along the way. It was not something that I expected – or wanted – to discover.”
Thus, after taking care of the pool on Saturday, I braved the crappy freezing rain on Sunday and fired up my chainsaw. I’m not really sure why I even have a chainsaw, but it sure was handy that afternoon. I put it to work and cleared the major branches that were blocking the path. I wasn’t really interested in trying to salvage any of the wood for burning (I have a nice fireplace in my house), since the wood was willow and doesn’t burn well. Instead, my goal was to simply get it out of the way so I can bring a professional crew in and let them take care of it safely.
Although I rarely have a reason to break out my chainsaw, it sure can make short work of a big mess. But, it is simply too small and I am not skilled enough to really take care of the whole tree. Thus, my goal was to simply clear the path and call in the professionals.
Thus, this week will be spent locating a local tree service that will cut down a rather massive willow tree. The base of the tree is nearly six feet in diameter and it stands 30 to 40 feet tall. It is not something I would even begin to take care of myself – at least not without a bunch of destruction to either me or my property.
Once the tree is gone, I will also need to plan fixing both my fence and my neighbor’s fence. It is just one of those “joys of home ownership” that they never really talk about when trying to sell you a house. Plus, they make all of the repairs look so easy on the HGTV.
