Yard Work

We are equally as eager to start cleaning up the yard as we are to clean the house.  Since neither of us are master gardeners, this is going to take a while, but over the last few days, we can see little accomplishments slowly begin to change the face of our home.  When we viewed Greenwreath, it wasn’t totally clear what these were:

Two large fallen trees

They just looked like two massively overgrown and oddly placed hedges.  However, after we bought the house and were able to spend more time there inspecting everything, it became clear that they are actually two trees that have been uprooted and left in place.  Judging from the aerial pictures available on OPIS, it seems they came down right about the time of hurricane Irene.  One of Garreth’s first tasks was to wield the manliest of yard tools, the chainsaw, and finally get rid of them.

Two large dead patches in our lawn where the trees once lay

 He then turned his attention to the very overgrown boxwoods surrounding the house and completely obscuring the foundation.  We originally wanted to relocate them to the perimeter to make a nice hedgerow at the property line, but it turns out that the middle of summer is the wrong time to move large boxwoods.  Unfortunately, they have to come out in order to fix the sill, so we made the tough decision to cut them down since they would not have survived being uprooted.  Although we wrestled with this idea for some time, we love the outcome!  You can actually see the brick foundation wall now, which we agreed is much more visually appealing.

And here is the left side of the house, before and after its manicure:

We have no idea what this is, but it's a big old mess.

There's a whole chimney under there!

Now that all of the overgrowth is gone, we can make out a date brick (1791) in this chimney.  It's upside down just below the first shoulder, suggesting that it was recycled from an old chimney in the dining room, which was torn down when the house was extended in 1810.

In case anyone wondered, Garreth disposed of the overgrowth using fire, and lots of it!  At a safe distance from our wooden house, of course.

More to come!