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Plenty of snow to work with…

Today I was doing some work outside the house (specifically looking into how to get rid of some pesky squirrels that have finagled their way into our siding) and noticed two trees severely leaning. These trees have been dead since we moved in, and it’s been in the back of my mind to get them down at some point. But while the trunk is on my side of the fence, the trees go through the fence and the whole of the trees are on my neighbor’s side. And they were leaning so much so they were depending on support of other trees and the neighbor’s house. It appeared one of the windy days this past week was enough to uproot both trees. I talked to the neighbor and asked if he minded if I took the trees down. He didn’t so I got to work with my bow saw. Heh heh. Without too much trouble I got both trees down (we’re talking six to eight-inch trunks here, 30-40 feet height. But here’s the weird thing: I figured the fence was cut around the tree. No, it appears as though the tree actually grew through and around the fence! Check it out:

Here’s the shot before I went and rented a chainsaw:

And after:

Now, you may wonder: where was Adrienne to help you during all this? She, of course, was out in Oakland, getting her picture taken with Santa Claus!

Well, she was in San Francisco for work, then flew up from Oakland to Portland (then home to Goldendale) for the weekend for a surprise visit. Then she’s back in San Francisco on Monday for more work, and flies home Tuesday. I think. I guess Microsoft was running some promotion for Live(.com) where you get your photo taken with the Jolly Old Man at the Oakland airport. And she had some time to kill. Kinda bad lighting, if you ask me. But it was free!

So needless to say I had to fend for myself for dinner, so pizza it was! I tried out the recipe from the latest Cook’s Illustrated, which was supposed to be akin to what we’d call a New York slice.

I thought it was decent, but Adrienne would think the crust too thick. Eh, to each their own. And since she wasn’t here…

Happy Weekend, one and all!

As per tradition (does one time before count as tradition?), Adrienne and I ran the Ashenfelter 8K Classic Thanksgiving Day morning in Glen Ridge, the next town over. With more than 2000 runners, there was a good amount of Thanksgiving cheer! I don’t think either of us were quite as prepared (training-wise) as last year. But we ended up just a bit more than a minute slower. And I really think we could have done a good bit better, had Adrienne let me push her more (yes, we mostly ran together or at least within sight as I kind of paced Adrienne).

Another cool note: to register you just send in your check and form and the night before you pick up your packet with your number, etc. Adrienne ended up with badge number 1747 and I got 1748. After the race we checked the race results and what place did I finish? 1748! Adrienne actually crossed the finish line before me, but the time (and thus place) are (correctly) calculated from the time you cross the starting line, so I ended up being a couple seconds faster. Adrienne placed 1749.

Not a bad way to start off Turkey Day, even if it’s not quite a Turkey Trot.

And yeah, we’re too cheap to actually purchase the photos, so you get the screengrab with the watermark.

Hey, I ran a 5-mile race this morning, it’s ok.

And I’m not talking about Charlie…

Adrienne and I walked the couple blocks to the Oakside Cultural Center here in Bloomfield to check out a Mandolin Orchestra concert this afternoon. (The Bloomfield Mandolin Orchestra has been around for 70 years now, and is one of the many community music groups that operate in Bloomfield–pretty cool even if the quality isn’t quite top notch, or even middle at times…) The concert featured Italian and Neapolitan songs, and pretty much ended up being a sing-along for the crowd of mostly older Italian types. It was still enjoyable enough, and a nice little diversion from the many chores on our weekend list!

On the way home, we again saw more wild turkeys just hanging out in front yards. An odd site for what I consider to be quite urban suburbs, but still kinda cool! Gobble gobble.

We’re finally getting our sided-over stained glass windows opened up. We have one on each side of the fireplace and one by the stairs on the opposite wall. Here’s an old photo of the two by the fireplace:

Ok, so it was night out and thus a bad comparison, but those two windows are sided over – no light! And here’s a photo from today:

Detail:

Other side:

Not only do they look cool, but they let more light into our dark-ish living room. Only problem is the one on the right side of the fireplace has a crack and hole in it. We were hoping we could remove the whole window so the stained glass place could fix it, but that seems like it’s not going to happen. So there’s more work to be done.

Also today, we got ready for winter:

No, I didn’t cut and split all that. We buy our wood here in the ‘burbs… but I did pile it. That’s a half-cord. So I feel productive, and all we did was spend money!

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Edit:

Here’s a better photo of the stained glass windows sided-over.

And I was able to get the window out with some coaxing and minor breaking, so I’ll be taking it to the stained glass place tomorrow and hoping they can work wonders for cheap!

We learned every little town has their own (little) Memorial Day Parade, so we walked the couple blocks (just the other side of the college) to check it out. David kinda wishes the towns would consolidate so we could get a better parade going, but we’ll take what we can get. Click on photos for bigger version and commentary.

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We’ve noted some very striking trees, and want to ID one variety, with quite large blossoms:

Closeup of blossom:

Any ideas? Some form of cherry blossom?

And while we’re on the subject of green thumbing it, we’ve done some yard work this weekend. I decided I wanted to try a lawn, though we’ve been advised it’s going to be tough with the combination of acidic dirt and heavy shade. But it did give me a chance to rent a tiller:

Lawn has been limed (to help with the acidity) and we’ll throw down seed tomorrow. We’ve also now got a small garden plot prepped out behind the garage, and three planters already planted!

We came across this exuberant house a couple weeks ago, so today I went and grabbed a pic. Sorry it’s not the greatest, there was no good angle to be had.

Oh, and we did get the oven fixed (needed a new ignitor), so the ham is on!

We’re now out of wood.

A last chance to wrap up in a blanket with a friend.