Making Coffee

I saw a great reaction to our "new" yard this morning. The coffee pot sits under the window looking over the back yard. As I was preparing the Maxwell House, down the street comes this SUV. You can see the street quite clearly now. The SUV slows from a clip to a crawl. The older gentleman, driving, stares into our yard with shock, horror or just plain disbelief. I wonder if he was one of the Lundeen boys.

We always hear from our older neighbors about the Lundeen's. They lived in the house for at least 40 years. They had 6 boys and 1 girl. I do not know how everyone fit, but they left an impression.

The good news: Menard's has split rail fencing on sale; $21 for a 10 foot section.

They are gone!

It was sad to watch. Our yard looks like it belongs to a Suburban tract house. I have a ton of pictures and some video. I will be setting them up on youtube and Flickr.

The Demise

Today is the end.

Tree Wake

We had a tree wake on Sunday. We invited a ton of friends and family. We cooked out. We sat under the trees. It was nice to have that final day. Next time we have a party some people will have a reference of the change.

We received an email from one family member who said we where weird. My wife was a little passionate in her response. How passionate? Sweet stuff is a mild Minnesota girl; our dearly loved relative told her not to be so "Salty!"

A friend said we should not mourn death, but celebrate the life of whatever we plant to replace them. Oh we will!

Flagging Fast

When the City marked our trees, the northern tree was not showing any signs of disease. I flirted with the idea of having an arborist in to see if that tree could be saved. Well it is one week later and the north tree is starting to flag fast. I am glad it was still in good shape earlier on for pictures.

I spent the morning taking care of the yard. We are having some friends and family over for one last BBQ under the trees. It looked like fall in the back yard. The lawnmower did a nice job chopping up the leaves, but they are falling way to fast at this point to keep the yard clear.

Dutch Courage

Many a young boy dreams of being an Astronaut. I was one of them. Everyone wants to be a hero, I even had the Space Shuttle tech manual back in the early 80s.

So ... some who grew up and got to live the dream, need a little help getting up on the horse. I heard Story Musgrave at one point say, "being 'launched' into space is really just sitting on top of an explosion." That definitely is the border of crazy / cool.

NASA if you are looking for any new Astronauts, specifically those with no science or flying background. I am your man. And I promise I will not need any Dutch Courage.

Taking Pictures.

I have been busy taking pictures. We have lived here for two years and I can not believe how much I have not seen or appreciated in my backyard. There are only four unobstructed views of the crown of our trees in the neighborhood. That speaks well for how many tall trees we have here. I just wonder if anyone besides our immediate neighbor to the south will miss them any where near as much as we will.

The loss of shade will be devastating. Our Lot is oriented East / West and the trees are centered between the house and the garage. Our back yard benefits from an incredible amount of shade during the height of summer. Even with moderate drought in Minnesota this year, We only have two corners of the back yard that need water to keep from completely burning up.

We need to spend as much time as possible out there for the next week or two.

Lawyers to ambulances, Sharks to blood, Tree Services to...

the orange ring of Death.

The markings are not even 24 hours old, and a tree service business card was left on our door today . The guy stopped back by this evening. Needless to say I was blown away by the quote. Not because it was so high, but because it was so low. These are two big trees. They are easily 8 feet around. I was preparing myself for the price to be double what he said it would be. The quote includes stump grinding and all clean up.

We share our grief.

I related the bad news to family and friends in this email


We have had the orange circles of death painted on our two large Elm trees. I have been praying against the obvious for the past couple of weeks, but the Minneapolis Park Board Forestry Dept. caught up with us. Our back yard will never be the same. Our daughter will be sixty before anything could grow to a comparable size. Our neighbor has lived on this block her entire life. Just the other night she said she could almost remember when these where planted.

For those not in the know, when an American Elm gets Dutch Elm Disease it is marked for removal. An orange spray paint circle around the trunk.

There is nothing that can be done, but I will have my day. I will never support the Dutch National team in international football competitions again. I will root extra hard against them in the Euro 2008 Qualifiers. GO Group G; make me happy!

The End Begins

My beautiful, large and old Elm trees have succumbed to the Dutch Death.

SweetStuff had been napping Thursday morning with our new baby girl. When She woke, she went to the kitchen and happened to look out the window. She noticed orange circles on both our Elms. At the front door was a note from the City Park Board.

She called me at work with the news, and wondered why I was not as crushed as she was. The funny thing is, earlier that morning, after I backed out of the drive way, I looked at the trees from the street and convinced myself that they where suffering more than drought stress.