Trees and Doors

Fringe tree, red bud tree, dogwood tree

When we bought this house, our yard had no trees in it. A full quarter acre of land and no trees. There are woods behind our lot that provide shade to the back of our yard, but other than a few plants and shrubs we only had grass. Today my lovely grandparents brought us some beautiful trees that will flower every spring - a red bud that will have bright purple blossoms, a dogwood tree, and a fringe tree that will have fragrant white flowers.  They also brought a few native plants for additional coverage at the base of the trees. They even gave us a soil test kit and a few gardening tools. It was so nice and generous of them.

We planted the fringe tree in the front, then the red bud and dogwood in back near the garage. I think they look great - I'm so excited to see them grow and bloom.

Today also marked the momentous occasion of the dryer finally getting into the basement. The guys from Sears will come back for a 3rd time on Sunday to install it. We had to hire a carpenter to come in and remove the door and door frame, then they kindly moved the dryer into the basement, and then they installed a new door for us. Why a new door?

The original door was very badly hung. There was a 2" gap under the door when we removed the storm door. It turned out the door frame was fake! It was literally just strips of wood they had nailed together with 5 inch rusty nails and then covered with tape. Who does that? With 5 inch nails?! Not only were we losing a lot of cold air, a chipmunk stuck his head through the gap yesterday afternoon. I screamed thinking it was a mouse and scared it away. So while this was a ridiculous and  expensive way to get a dryer into the basement, it really just expedited the terrible door being replaced that much sooner.