On the Verge

Barring a ceiling I do not want to repaint, my dining room is ready for wallpaper.

Yaaaayyyyyyy!!!! from the peanut gallery.

This means in the past month I got the rest of the old paste off the walls.

Handy scraping tool

And finished washing the yucky mill dirt off from behind the trim.

And used Gardz to stabilize the surface of the drywall on the wall between the dining room and the kitchen.

Gardz = shiny

And used the Big Wally's to close up a plaster crack over the "archway' to the living room.  And to stabilize the plaster at the bottom of the left side of the north wall, and at the bottom edge of the west windows.

And spackled and sanded all the dents and holes and all that sort of thing.  (Used joint compound, actually, it being what I had on hand.)

And took down the register cover and spray-painted it hammered bronze.

Before

Screen wire cover, to keep the kittehs out of the ductwork

And used paint and walnut-tinted shellac to fake a natural finish on the silly undersized cornice molding.

And shellacked the window jambs and heads where they'll be exposed once the trim is back up.

And primed the whole room (and was glad I had enough left to finish the job).

And touched up the perimeter of the ceiling with primer where the shellac got out of hand.

And did the Big Wally's on a couple of corners of the ceiling where I discovered it was sagging a litle when I was touching up the perimeter.

And spackled and sanded the holes left from that, and hope no one notices, since a big enough chip of the ceiling paint didn't stick to the Big Wally washers such that I can get a computer match at the Big Blue Box Store, and I do not want to paint the ceiling!!

Before sanding.  Definitely.

Of course it helps to have an excellent Inspector of Works.

Wallpapering, which will entail railroading blankstock under and hanging the good stuff on top, will have to wait until I can be sure of a second pair of hands.  It's not a job I can do alone.

And yes, I'm pretty well reconciled to using the celery-green-tinged William Morris "Savernake" paper I have eight rolls of.  Not like I can return it after five years.  Or sell it on Ebay and replace it with another dye lot, the price has gone up so high.  I'll deal with it.  It should be fine.

Scraping Along

What was the name of that instrument the Romans used to use to scrape the sweat and dirt off their bodies?

Oh, yeah, a strigil.  Pretty effective tool, a strigil.  If you didn't have soap and water, or if soap and water wouldn't do the job, a strigil was the tool for you.

But what's that got to do with preparing my dining room for repapering?

A lot.

Remember I said Monday that removing the old paste was a long, wet, messy, tedious job?  Well, it is.  And using only spray cleaner, a scrub brush, and an abrasive coated sponge, apparently an ineffective job, too.

I started on the east wall on Tuesday evening.  That's the wall that's clad in drywall.  Now, it's not like I've been working on this steadily since Sunday night.  I have other things to take care of, like work and gearing up a new used laptop computer.  I do what I can on the walls, and leave what I must for later.

Anyway, either I was deceiving myself on how well the old paste came off the plastered north wall, or it was thicker on the drywall or the drywall holds it more.  I know I was scrubbing and scrubbing and it was still sticky and gooey.  The Simple Green was not working.  The brush and sponge just spread the goop around.

So, back to first principles.  What is the time-honored way to loosen and dissolve old wallpaper paste?  A 50-50 mix of vinegar and warm water, of course.  And if the sponge is leaving the wet residue on the wall, well, time to start scraping.

Like with a strigil.  Or in this case, a plastic wallpaper smoother.

Spray, spray, spray.  Scrub, scrub, scrub.  Scrape, scrape, scrape.  Rinse, rinse, rinse.  Wipe, wipe, wipe.

Oh, my.  It's scary how much pasty glop accumulates on the edge of that scraper.  Once, twice, three times I have to repeat the procedure on each yard-square area of the wall, before I can even begin to fool myself into thinking it's no longer sticky and the paste is gone.

I'm still working on that one east wall with the drywall.  I'm barely half done with the room, if that.  And if I have to go back and redo (scrape) the walls I already have done, I'll wish I had a few of those sweaty Romans around to help me out, strigils and all.

Arrières Pensées

Yves Tanguy, Arrières-pensées (Second Thoughts), 1939

Source: http://www.sfmoma.org/explore/collection/artwork/319##ixzz22eLOuYZc
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

The prep work in the living room is finally done.  The last of the old beige moiré paper has been stripped, loose plaster has been resecured and patched, large missing pieces (behind the baseboards) have been filled in with drywall, the old wallpaper size/paste has been scrubbed down and stabilized with Gardz sealer, cracked have been taped and mudded and nailholes spackled, the silly skinny cornice moulding impinged upon by the ceiling paint has been given a faux natural wood finish courtesy of some brown paint I found in the basement and three or four coats of walnut-tinted shellac, and all four walls have received a coat of wallpaper-compatible primer.  Including the wall above the fireplace, where the wet places used to be.  The holes and flaws in the door frames are filled with wood filler and wiped smooth with alcohol on fine steel wool to avoid raising dust.  The door and window frames need a few coats of shellac, but otherwise, everything is prepared and ready for wallpaper.

But I'm not jumping up raring to hang it.  It may have something to do with a dream I had recently . . .

    I was in a house, and it was my house, though it looked nothing like it.  I was in a large room, beautifully wallpapered, and  the papering job was mine.

        The predominant color was a kind of deep warm rose-pink, with subtle pattern of more orangey-reds, with accents of darker and lighter colors running through it.  The effect was very rich, and though the paper wasn't any of my William Morris patterns, I knew it was very expensive, like something you would get from Bradbury & Company.  The most striking thing was a border about five inches high that ran horizontally around the room about four feet above the floor.  This wasn't applied over the other paper; no, it was integral with it.  The paper came in five foot widths, and I'd hung it as directed, horizontally, so the border showed as it ought, with the upper width overlapping the lower.

        I stood there admiring the effect, when all of a sudden the upper five-foot strip began to come loose from the wall, just to the left of the doorway.  Oh-oh!  I'd better go get some paste and stick it back up, fast.  But I wasn't sure where the paste was, because now it seemed that I wasn't in my own house, but this was a room I was living in in a house owned by somebody else, maybe my older sister, and I didn't want to go upstairs and bug her.

        My bed was opposite the door, I was tired, and I thought maybe I could leave this till morning.  But as soon as I sat down on my bed, more of the top width of wallpaper started peeling off.  No!  I ran over and literally caught it in my arms as it came loose from the wall.  I saw that underneath it the other, coordinating paper was also railroaded, and it went from baseboard to ceiling.  And as I stood there struggling, it, too, began to cascade down.

        All around the room the beautiful expensive paper was coming off the walls, and rippling down wrinkled and ruined, so it couldn't be put back up and reused.  What did I expect, I told myself.  This was a basement room, so maybe it was damp.  But I thought I'd taken that into consideration when I'd done the papering!

        Then I looked up, and saw that I'd also papered the ceiling in the deep rose-pink paper, complete with an ornamental border with special motifs in the corners.  And this, too, began to peel off and hang down.

        I was distraught!  All that work!  All that money!  The job was ruined and I was ruined!  What could I do?

And the only thing that saved me from utter nightmare misery was making myself wake up enough to remember that the only room I have wallpapered so far is the stairhall, and it's in William Morris "Blackthorn" and it's only on the bottom of the walls and it's adhering very nicely, thank you very much.

 At the time this seemed like only a frivolous dream, and I was more frivolous still for writing it down.  But maybe not.  Maybe it's me trying to come to terms with what I'm going to do with the red on red "Owen Jones" wallpaper I bought for the living room, if I don't get lucrative work soon and have to put the house on the market in the foreseeable future.  The price of the paper has nearly doubled since I laid in my supply three years ago.  And what about all the blankstock I've bought, too?  Maybe it might be better just to paint the living room walls and those in the dining room as well and get the trim back up, then wait and see what happens to me financially before I blow the expensive Morris paper on it.  Because if I hang it and have to move, sure as shooting the realtor will tell me I should take it back down in order to sell the house.  Or the new owner will take it down and all my effort will be wasted.

I don't know.  I have to consider that not using what I've got would mean blowing money on more paint, with no guarantee that I'd want to use the papers I have in my next house, if any.  And if I'm renting or boarding with somebody, how could I?

No decisions yet.  I still have a lot of work to do on the screen door and on the floor in the 1st floor hall.  I'll see what my local DIY friends think.  And if any of my DIY cyber friends want to weigh in, please do.

Living Room Wall Progress

The wood of the flat moulding has weathered gray--it is stripped

Wednesday morning I used up the last of the Western Wood Doctor on the plain side of the screen door insert.  I ordered more Monday night, but it has to come by truck all the way from Oregon and the ETA is Tuesday the 17th.  That's given me the excuse to come back upstairs and work on the south wall of my living room.

Old filler plaster

Haven't touched it since just before my English friend Janet* visited in April.  Mental block.  See, on either side of the cased opening to the front room is a two to three inch strip of scratch coat plaster.  At least, that's what I have on the righthand side.  On the left there's broken blocks of scratch coat plaster, miscellaneous broken bricks set up on end, and other flotsam and jetsam filling in the space between the 2x6 support member and the proper mortared-in brick of the wall.  I know because some of those rectangular chunks of plaster were loose and protruding, and I pulled them out and laid them aside when I first got around to that wall.  Question was, what was I going to do with them?  More to the point, what was I going to do about the 1½" deep by 2½" wide by 18" tall cavity left once the plaster blocks were out?  Would the face trim be enough to hide it?  What if it showed?  I had some idea of using Liquid Nails to glue them back in, but how could I hold them tight to the back of the cavity while it was drying?  And how could I shave enough off the backs of the blocks so they'd go in flush, without breaking them to pieces?

Styrofoam blocking

Needed to be doing something on the house Wednesday morning, and all of a sudden it hit me that I was going too far with the authenticity.  The point is to fill the cavity, right?  So who cares what it's filled with, as long as it's a legitimate building material (e.g., not Kleenex) and it doesn't show?  So with a mingled sense of cleverness and shame, I cut the Gordian knot and trimmed down some old packing Styrofoam.  I mean, it's like insulation, even if it is on an interior wall, right?  Shoved the foam to try it and the pieces fit perfectly.  Glued it in with construction adhesive on Thursday (once I'd scrubbed the wall above it), and there it reposes and dares anyone to make something out of it.  (The old plaster went out with the trash Thursday night).

Gardz is shiny

Two coats mud &/or patching plaster

With that settled, I could go on to scrub down the south wall and the part of the west wall around the corner (the idea being to remove any loose or soft size from the previous owners' wallpaper job) and coat it with Gardz primer (to seal in all the remaining size).  Had that done by Wednesday evening, and the mornings up to today saw me patching the cracks and old nail holes in the plaster and wet-sanding them down.  One bad area above the lefthand corner of the opening needed taped and mudded; I've controlled myself and kept it to two coats of joint compound (24 hours drying time after each).  Typically I have a hard time trowelling it on; I keep leaving ridges.  I've found the more coats I apply and the more sanding I do the worse it gets.  The crack's not at eye level; get the paper tape well covered, wipe it down a little, and let it alone!

Finish plaster at bottom

Being in an intimate relation, as it were, with this wall the past few days has given me a good-enough answer to a house history question that's been tugging for years at the skirts of my curiosity.  My front room used to be an open porch, of course.  And that cased doorway from the living room used to be a window, probably a three-gang from the width.  But why all that filler on either side of the "new" supports?  Did the window used to be wider than the doorway is now?  The finish plaster above the lintel seemed to say No, but all those loose bricks and crap bothered me.  But when I was down on the righthand side cleaning the wall just above the baseboard line, I noticed that the original gold-tinted finish plaster went all the way to the inside line of the support on that side.  Of course, when the front room was a porch, that finish plaster went all the way under the window.  Maybe this doesn't make total sense, but something about it tells me that the window rough opening was built as wide as I see it now, and the width of the doorway is the width of the former window.    I think they stopped the coursed brick well short of the window jamb supports to allow installation room and to account for variations in the width of the windows they might get.  Most of the filler that's in now would have been put in with the doorway, but it was meant to be there, I think.

Seems odd that I would chew this over so much, but I guess it bothered me to think that structural brick had been knocked out when the doorway was put in.  And the face trim was installed out of plumb which made me wonder what else had been done carelessly.  Not that the structure has been compromised-- I've found evidence that the work may have been done in the 1930s and it's been fine since then.

Well.  Next on the agenda is to continue the fake natural wood shellac job on the painted cornice moulding, which is too narrow and cheap-looking but is not coming down at this juncture.

Heading in the Right Direction

12:45 AM

     Here I am in the front room, contesting possession of the sofa bed with a very determined dog.

    Yes, I've finally, finally made the long-awaited move downstairs to keep me and the animals off the staircases and 2nd hall floor until they're refinished and cured.  No, I haven't finally, finally got any new shellac on the staircases and/or the 2nd floor hall floor. 

    I have vacuumed the whole lot, and used a dental pick to clean the cat hair out of the joints between the treads and risers of the set to the 3rd storey.  Those were wiped down with a damp washcloth and dried off, then I went over them lightly with 220-grit sandpaper.  Then wiped them off with a tack rag, then with the damp washcloth again.

    The cardboard and brown paper is off the hallway floor, and I see I have a darker strip at the bedroom door where the bare boards weren't covered all these months, as well as residue on the floor from the painter's tape I stuck the paper down with.  I gave those places a bit of a sanding, and it seems to be evening out.

    The joints to the steps down to the 1st floor I haven't defuzzed yet.  It was rising  midnight and I felt it was a good point to leave it.  Still had to pull out and make the bed.  And go down and get ready for bed in the basement bathroom for a change.  And try to convince the dog to let me into the bed at all.

    The fun thing will be sleeping with all the electric candles around this room.  And the glare from the neighbors' Christmas lights outside.

   Not to mention the cats making noise trying to find a way around the barriers I've erected in all the stairhall openings.  Never mind.  I'll deal with that in the morning.

So What Now?

If anybody's checking my project trackers over there on the right these days, you'll notice something has changed.

Yes, finally, the one for the stripping of steps to be refinished is at 100%.  Cheers and huzzahs!

About ten days ago I went at the painted stringers of the steps to the 3rd floor with the heatgun, then took a break and devoted my home improvement energies to garden work.  But today I seized my refinisher and steel wool with both hands and got the stringers and the last risers and treads cleaned off and done.

That was completed by around 4:00 this afternoon, with no thanks to a last handful of embedded carpet staples.  If this were ordinary times for me and my energies weren't sapped by the aftereffects of chemo (sorry to have to mention it, but it's true), I would have put up the dropcloths and dust barriers and gotten on with the sanding.  As it is, I cleaned up the stripping mess and retreated to the computer to read other people's houseblogs and contemplate what's next.

1) I managed to chip paint off the trim of the doorway at the bottom of the 3rd floor steps.  I repainted that myself seven years ago.  It's going to stay painted.  I tried smoothing it off with refinisher.  But it's going to need sanded, regardless.  Do I do that first?  Or, given the stricter lead paint regulations, do I just say oh, phooey, and strip that as well, just to get that much more lead paint off?  No, it wouldn't be done according to all the current EPA hazmat rules; I'd be doing well if I put up with wearing a mask in this heat.  But it'd be done.

2)  The treads and risers will need some light sanding, at least.  Can I do that with the animals in the house?  Should I make sure I have the shellac ready to apply right after I sand, so I don't mess up the bare-bare wood walking on it?  That will mean sequestering the critters, somehow, somewhere.  But how, and where?

3)  Have I waited too long since I mixed up my aniline dye colors for the shellac?  I did it on the 24th of May; where did the time go?  Should I have put the jars in the fridge?  Should I get myself in gear to make me some shellac out of the buttons I have in the fridge since last year (they're still good, definitely), or should I go the easy and standardized way and go pick me up some Zinsser's at Lowe's?

4)  How much barrier plastic am I going to have to put up against the sanding dust?  Which would be worse, croaking from the heat and no ventilation with the plastic up, or cleaning yellow pine dust off everything the next five years if I scamp it?

5)  Given the fact that I have to work around the chemo tireds, how long should I allow to sand and refinish the hallway floor and both flights of steps?  Two or three days?  Can I get space in a local kennel for that long at this time of year?

5)  More to the point, how should I finish the risers to the 3rd floor?  Back when I first took the carpet off, I was thinking I'd paint them white and leave the treads natural.  That'd demark the study and its stairs as different, maybe more private. But the stairway comes down past the doorway and I'm not sure I want the white "intruding" into the Craftsman ambiance of the 2nd floor hall.  But maybe that's just my lack of guts talking.

I was hoping to work with a photo of the stairs to render two or three different color schemes for them.  But my cheap-ass photo editing software so far hasn't allowed me to do that.  Or maybe I just don't know how to use it.

Well, one good thing about writing about my worrywarting:  It's shown me how silly a lot of it is.  I mean, just do it and get it done, for goodness sake!

I Can Haz Tyme Warp?

Yesterday evening I opened the third and last gallon can of the Western Wood Doctor Furniture Refinisher that I ordered last winter. They ship the individual cans tied into plastic shopping bags (packed into a cardboard carton, etc.). And what do you know: Inside this third and last bag was my receipt and a use brochure.

I've been using this solution for years, but hey, I'll read anything. Especially if it means taking a break from work.

So here I read, "2. Before starting to remove the old finish, repair all damages as needed (burn marks, re-glue veneer and joints, mend missing parts, etc.). This is done at this time to insure that the new wood will blend with the old in the refinishing process."

Well, yes, that is a very good idea. I totally agree. But here I am, not doing it. Nearly 70 pieces of wood trim stripped to date, and I have not pre-filled any of the cracks and nail holes and gouges.

Yes, I'm sure the Howard people know what they're talking about. It creeps upon my mind to be concerned about how it's going to look when I go back and use and sand down the wood filler.

And let's not even talk about the endgrain where I'll need to take the palm sander to it.

But how can I do it the right way? Until I get the old surface off with the refinisher, I don't even know where the holes and gouges are! If I could go back in time and prevent whichever previous owner it was from using white spackle to fill the old nail holes, I gladly would. If I could have clean edges on the pieces that need put back together before I've cleaned them, I'd arrange that, too.

The only thing I hope to arrange now is to be as neat as possible with the hole and gouge filling. I'm thinking sawdust mixed with water-soluble wood glue.

And some of the dents, I may well leave. Gives the woodwork character, right? This trim should look like its age, nearly 100 years old, not like it was milled yesterday. That would be time-warped!

My Rock Collection

When it comes to my borders, I think I'm finding out why the previous owners just hauled in landscape rock and dotted hostas here and there.

Anybody wanna see my new rock collection? Anybody wanna add to theirs? I've got plenty. Little ones, middle-sized ones, and great big breadloaf-sized ones. Just stick in your spade six inches or so and you'll find 'em, just waiting for you to dig them out!

And I wish you would come over to my house and dig them out. I spent a couple hours last evening and a couple hours more today, and if I've got that new East Border bed one-eighth free of the kind of stones plants mortally stub their toes on, I'm doing better than I think I am.

It rained hard last night and the ground is really too wet to be messing around with. Which is my excuse for not being out there prospecting right now.

As I dig and scrape, pry and pull, it is diverting to think that this may be the first time those stones have been disturbed since the glaciers deposited them during the last ice age.

On the other hand, it may all be fill dirt, brought in by the developers in the early 20th century. I don't really think anyone was making structural clay tile 18,000 years ago . . .

Anyway, now I have this great collection of ground rocks. I may reconsider my idea of edging these beds with brick.



What I want to know is, when will my spade strike the box of gold coins that some long-deceased previous owner must have buried in the back yard? I should get some reward for all this labor above and beyond a usable flower bed!

A Fair Way of Amendment

My little eleven-by-five-foot-six kingdom on the East Border has received reinforcements.

I mean, soil amendments.

We got yer well-rotted cow manure and yer mushroom compost . . .

And a solid ton of peat moss (well, it felt heavy enough!) . . .

And then all the leaf mould and topsoil I'd saved in a tarp on my bit of patio:

Then in and down with the spading fork and up and over . . .

And that's all for tonight, folks: It was getting too dark to tell the difference between peat moss and red sand.

The real down and dirty happens tomorrow, when I get on my knees with the garden fork and try to persuade all this dirty goodness to mix and mingle and make something like decent soil.

And when I get out my pan and screen again and pull up and screen out all the stones my spading fork kept hitting about 8" down this evening. Not imported landscape rocks this time: The ones the soil around here is naturally "blessed" with.

O teh roundee rockes, teh rowndie rockks!

Haow ai duz luvvz teh rouwndee roxx!!

Devices and Desires

I never do things the way I'm supposed to.

Take the East Border in my back garden. After a night spent with the matter running through my head, I decided there's no use in my amending just the 3'-8" width I now had, when it really needs to be wider to amount to anything.

So I decided to peel up the grass and take it out 18" further, to line up with a brick joint in this funny pointless little path with its funny 9" x 4-1/2" bricks that I've got running perpendicular to my backyard walkway.

And I figured I'd do the whole strip from one end of the yard to the other, not just the twelve feet or so I'd finished clearing the rocks off yesterday.

They say you should just take the grass and leave the topsoil. Couple-three years ago, I widened that border a good foot or so, and I nearly gave myself varicose veins, not to mention nerve paralysis, stomping on the spade to heave out these great deep divots. A local gardener told me I shouldn't be going that deep. So yesterday evening, I looked at sod cutting devices online. Delightful, labor-saving tools that'd give you a mere 2" thick layer you could roll right up.

Nice, but occasionally it's prudent for me to remember I'm poor and use the tools I have.

Like my cordless mower with the edger attachment. Maybe I could cut the long edge with that. And then lift up the margins just enough with my spading fork.

Would it lift?

Gracious, no. That'd be too easy.

No idea why not-- after all, the sod I removed last January for the front yard crape myrtle bed lifted and rolled satisfactorily!

But maybe the backyard grass is different from what's growing in front. And it's spring now, and the roots are vigorous and tenacious.

So I proceeded to follow the devices and desires of my own heart. I did what I ought not to have done: I plunged in with my spading fork and removed the grass in chunks nine or ten inches square and four to six inches deep.

Yeah, there went all the top soil-- all but what I could shake or pound or fork off. But what could I do? I wanted to get the sod off (...) and I did what I needed to do to do it!

And then, I'm calling what I hope to end up with an herbaceous border. With a few shrubs, fruiting or not, dotted in. But they say you shouldn't plant perennials anywhere near a tree and its root system. And my sugar maple is at most--what?-- fifteen feet away? If that? And roots in where I'm digging? Oy vey! Have we ever got roots!

But I'm going to plant this border anyway. What am I supposed to do? Give up and put back all the landscape rock? Deep-six the tree and its shade and force myself to turn on the air conditioning? I've managed to get through four summers without it, largely thanks to that tree!

I can spare it a little fertilizer, if it'll spare me a few root ends.

Anyway, the border is now widened to 5'-6". Sometime in the future I'll take another eight inches or so of grass for a brick edge, but I think I'll rent a trencher to do that. Want make it deep enough to dump in some concrete and give myself a sporting chance of keeping the tree roots out.

Next thing, tomorrow, I have to amend the soil. They say you should do that in the fall and let it settle over the winter. Or at the very least, give it a week or two.

But how am I supposed to do that? I've got to get those blackberry bushes planted right away!

They say God looks after drunks and fools. I hope amateur gardeners fit in there somewhere, too.

I'm Not Stripping Woodwork

Not this week, anyway.

No, I'm out in the back garden acquiring that lovely gray-brown tinge to the cuticles that's such a fashion plus this time of year.

I could have kept on studiously overlooking the river rock riot that continues to overrun my borders (thanks to the POs and the POs-1)-- were it not for a pair of blackberry bushes I acquired a week ago yesterday that simply must be planted as soon as possible.

Wasn't really planning on putting in blackberries, at least, not this spring. But Sunday the 27th I preached on John 15 (Jesus Christ the True Vine) and the day before I got this bug to bring in a real grape vine plant to illustrate the children's sermon. So down I went to the Agway and brought a nice one. And on the Sunday, between that and the grapes I also brought in, I think the kids' message went across well.

But I still had the grape vine in its pot. And, I had to face facts, nowhere feasible to plant it. So I took it back to the Agway and got the blackberries instead. It is said that they can tolerate a bit more shade than grapes can. They'll go in what I call the East Border, which is mostly sunny-- except when the sugar maple's in the way.

So . . . . on Sunday last I shifted last year's casual compost pile, aka the Dead Plant Dump, from the east side of the yard to the west. Should stay moister over there, anyway.

Yesterday, I sifted out landscape rock until I had to go to choir practice. Two loads, out to the alley. Free to a good home! Any takers?

And this evening, hooray, I got all the river rock and landscape fabric out of a twelve or so foot stretch between the big rock pile to the north and the self-sown ajugas on the south.

That's enough space for now. The blackberries have to be planted three to four feet apart; that should give them the room they need.

I found some interesting things under the rock. Anybody know what this larva might be?

And I always find these holes under the landscape fabric. And dried cicada shells latched on to its underside. The two are connected, maybe?

It really is decent dirt once you let the sun work on it.

And clear the roots out.

Not that they'll stay out. About four years ago I had a big branch fall off the sugar maple. Tree surgeon told me both it and the Norway might last another five years, tops. Guess what? Neither of them show signs of flagging. It's probably all down to the nice dirt and fertilizer their roots are finding in my planting beds.