The
Fall of the year 2002
... at our house
2002 stuff is in navy We lost two huge yews out front by the road, due
to stresses related to the draught we had for the last several
years. The county extension man said the draught stressed the trees,
allowing insects to set in, then woodpeckers did the trees in, going after
the insects, and all this cycled around until the trees died. When
we saw it coming we went ahead and planted two grandiflora magnolias
diagonally in front of the dying yews, in a W shape. They were an
anniversary present we gave to ourselves in 2000. We cut down the
first yew in the fall of 2001, and the second one in late winter (Feb.)
2002. We added two blue point junipers at the same time. The space where
the yews were is nowhere near filled yet but so far everything is doing
good. This picture of me
was taken by a monument erected in 1964 by Nellie Holland Russell,
the first major researcher of our Holland family. It is
a memorial to the first Hollands in our family to settle in
North Carolina.
2001 stuff is in red
This
Spring I took a road trip by myself. It was a Holland Heritage trip to Wayne
County, North Carolina, with my second cousin Linda Hales Duncan.
Linda and her husband Randy live in Greensboro, North
Carolina. Their house was my first stop. I had a
wonderful visit with them, spent the night there, then Linda and I
left the next morning for Wayne County.
Linda Duncan, my traveling companion for this tour D. Frank Hinnant, Jr. a Holland family descendant we met there, showing us pictures of clearing the old Holland family graveyard. Mr. Hinnant is spearheading plans to erect a monument to our ancestors in that graveyard.
And me.
visit to Janis and Jana,
And me.
then to Roy's with janis
Trip to Georgetown, SC and Pawley's Island meting with Barbara and Dale
And me.
Trip to beach and San Antonio in November
And me.
The reason I am not doing bulbs this year is ... are you sitting down? ... we have decided to sell our house and buy another one. I have been busy with that -- looking at houses and talking with realtors and builders. We are getting very concerned about the lack of zoning in our county and the rate of growth. Afraid a strip mall will go up next to us, or worst yet, a strip joint! We are getting weary of the upkeep, too, and not getting any younger. Never thought I'd want to go into a development but they are looking better to me now.
When we bought this place, we had to go 10-12 miles to the nearest grocery store. There wasn't much of anything out this way but a gas station on highway 72. Now, four miles straight up the county road to 72, there are three major grocery stores, a Home Depot and a Lowes, two major video stores, two Chinese restaurants, a Mexican restaurant, a Ruby Tuesdays, I-don't-know-how-many fast food restaurants, Kohl's, Book-a-Million, numerous shops. Even a hospital and big medical center is going in.
The nearest house to us, about a mile up the county road going toward highway 72, built a development in their 'front yard.' Last year a school went up between us and the development, and this year a huge development is going in, between us and the school. It's one of those major community things with about 8-10 builder/developers each building an area, and club house, pools, walking trails, and a couple of fishing lakes serving the whole area.
Added to the precariousness of the situation, the house across the street from us is on the market. They are retiring and building a farm in Tennessee, but I think some of the same concerns are at work for them. Their 5-acre property includes a corner on the county road and Love Lane. We have no guarantee that it will remain a pasture. Are you getting the picture? If a commercial something goes in there, we won't be able to get out; we'll be stuck.
It is very hard for us both to leave. We have worked so hard on this place. Right now, we are fixing and cleaning it up to put on the market. :(
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from last year: Our home water saga continues into it's third year. We are still getting underground leaks in our water pipes. The old, original underground line in back has been turned off for a couple of years because of developing leaks. Doug decided this was the year to replace that line with new pipe. After digging up the old line, he found he couldn't replace it after all because it is cemented into the ground where it comes out of the house. So the new plan is ... on hold. We got a new well pump which Doug installed and so we now have well water again for outside use. It's good to be able to water again as much as I want to. We have plenty of water down in the well. Time to update that map of our water system we've made for the next owners. Now we have a duel system of city water inside and well water outside. All that remains to be done now is to trench from the well connection in the front and lay new pipe to the garage and points out back. But that will be for another year because this year's big project was still ahead. The house needed a new roof this year so Doug planned to first rebuilt our porch roof to give it some pitch and better tie it into the existing roof. We had three years of draught until the week he scheduled to build the porch roof. The lumber was delivered, his time off from work was scheduled, he coordinated with his dad to help, and we got hurricane-type rains for days. By the time the rain finished, we were 17" ahead of where we were in rain at this time last year, and 4" above normal.
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Finally it cleared up, turned hot, and the new porch roof went up. Then, on my birthday, July 9, the roofers showed up and the entire house got a new roof. |
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At the same time the roof was being changed out, we had The Second Great Tree Clearing going on in the back. The county is going to put power poles along the county road in back of us and contracted with Asplund to clear the trees. The county claims 80' of right-of-way and needed to take down 17 of our trees in back of our garage and along the road. |
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Cutting down 17 mature trees on your property at one time is a big deal! The tree-cutting service was nice enough to cut them into logs for burning in the fireplace. All Doug has to do is split them, but many are over two feet across! They left us two big truckloads of mulch, too, which I liked. |
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In the late summer my Mom started going downhill rather fast. She passed away on August 25, less than a week before her 89th birthday. Doug and I made two trips to Greenville, North Carolina in August to see her. On the second trip, we arrived just before she died; in fact, I felt certain that she was waiting for me to get there. |
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Roy came from Virginia for the funeral, as did our cousin Jack. In each case, it was good for cousins to get together who hadn't seen each other in a long time. I'm sorry we didn't get a picture of Jana, Louie, and Roy together. |
 Dave, Diana, Jack |
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In October I bravely took a trip to visit Roy in Ashburn, flying into and out of Dulles Airport where the terrorists hijacked the plane that they flew into the Pentagon. We had a wonderful visit. He took off work while I was there and drove me around the whole area -- it is very beautiful. We spent Saturday driving and walking around Washington. The hole in the Pentagon where the plane crashed is sobering to see in person. More than a month after the crash, firefighters were still shooting water into the hole as we drove by. Last but certainly not least, the annual paw paw tree report. Three years of drought, notwithstanding, we still have the three trees. The big news this year is that for the first time, we had blooms! Yes, about six on the largest tree. They looked something like upside-down sweet shrub bush blooms. That was the good news. The bad news is that they all fell off. We are hoping that that was just a reaction to the stress of the draught and not an indication of some kind of incompatibility with our soil. Next year we should have a better idea about that. The paw paw tree progression since we started in 1997 looks like this:
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2001 2000 1999 1998 |
Tree 1
100" (8' 4") 64" 48" 27" |
Tree 2
90" (7' 6") 35" 23" 8" |
Tree 3
41" (3' 5") 20 1/2" 16"
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Well, that was our summer, on into fall. We have plenty of wood to burn and are ready for winter. |
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URL: http://www.betterthanmost.com/goodfolks/atourhouse/fall2001.htm
This page added in November 2002. Last updated 27 June 2008 12:48 PM