My folks and my sister and brother-in-law volunteered to come up yesterday help me take down my tree.
I knew it needed to be done – it was rotted through – but it was still sad to see it go.
And go it did. We got started right around 10 am and by 10:56 we had the tree down and the branches cleared away, logs piled up, and sidewalk swept. By 11:05, we were ready to go out to eat.
My brother-in-law is a force of nature with a chainsaw and Dad stacked the wood while my sister and I cleared branches. Oh, and my nieces helped with their pretend chain-saw before being relegated to the safety of the porch with Mom.
We had an entertaining lunch with my nieces – who were adorable – and then hung out for a bit before everyone headed back.
[Side note: While we were waiting for the food to arrive at the resturant, my youngest niece and I played tic tac toe on the placement. The first game was tied and then we switched crayons. During the second game, she switched from X’s to O’s in the middle of the game – and won, hands down. Clever girl. 🙂 ]
This morning, I got an early start and got the branches trimmed and bundled up. Took me all morning and while I was working on it one of my neighbors came over for the wood. He borrowed a wheelbarrow and made several trips back and forth to his house – commenting more than once that his cardiologist would be happy with exercise he was getting, but wouldn’t have been happy with the cigarette breaks.
I wondered he was suggesting that maybe I could haul the wood over to his house as well. I got him a bottle of water instead. And was ready to call 911 if it came to that.
Hey, it was free firewood.
He also raised the specter of someone trying to break into my house by climbing a tree to get into the second story window. I found that very doubtful – and it’s a moot point now anyway.
I got the kindling-size branches cut down to fit in the wheelbarrow and ended up with with 8 piles of branches bundled up and ready for the trash.
The front of my house looks a lot different now and there’s no shade. I took pictures and I’ll post them after the branches are hauled off. A sort of Before and Way After
Jim brought me lunch and then I hit the shower and took a nap. Which is weird for me, but I was exhausted. I’ll maybe put some kind of planter where the tree was or get rid of the rest of the stump and plant grass. But that’s a project for another day.
And… I already miss my tree.