Another Day, Another Dirt Pile

This is what the front "yard" looks like right now because they are digging up the sewer pipe.

Rob says it looks like we have police tape. Yes, that mess is certainly a crime. Ugh, when will it end?

Transplant Trauma

On Saturday, we moved two of our phoenix rose bushes. One was a climber that had sprung up by the porch; the other, a bushy one from the middle of the yard. We thought they'd look great in front of the new fence.

Oddly enough, we couldn't find a root ball for either one. The one by the porch had this gigantic tap root that led all the way back under the foundation. We had to hack it with a saw. Rob's convince he killed it. I'm holding out hope.

The bushy one, on the other hand, looks pretty damn traumatized. We'll see what happens.

Oak Tree, Take Two!

Yep. That's Rob digging up our Engelmann. And with a real shovel, not the ridiculous trowel he used to plant it.

We have a ghetto chain link fence we need to replace (more on that in a future post) and the new fence is going to be set two feet further back than the current one. Our contractor thought the tree was too close to where the new fence will be.

In keeping with the Wicca aura of this planting experience, Rob did the replant on Halloween.

Ridiculous!

While we were in escrow, we learned the house couldn't be sold because it didn't have a heat source -- a pretty significant problem in Southern California in July. Because it was a short sale, the owner refused to do any work on the property. The listing agent had a heater installed, but we didn't have any say on where it went. It now cuts up the only wall in our living room that would hold a book shelf, and the contractor's sloppy work left the floors the mess they were in my previous post. Sigh. And to think we're just going to rip the damn thing out at the first opportunity.