Trees, be Gone!

We were up before 7:00 today because we knew that we were going to be working outside at Lindsay's house, and we wanted to beat the heat of the mid-day sun.

Earlier in the week, we had gone to their house and helped them remove some branches from their two huge evergreen trees at the back of their lot.  Yesterday, Chris contracted with a tree removal contractor to take down the tallest of the trees.  The man with the chainsaw did just that: he cut the trunk about 4 feet from the ground and let the whole tree just drop.  Tim-m-m-ber!

Lindsay walks toward the downed tree as Rick cuts the branches
and Chris started to pile them for transportation to the curb.

Our task today was to go back to help them remove the branches from the fallen tree so Chris and Lindsay could haul the debris to the curb.

We took down the trunk of the smaller tree, but what remains of the larger tree will have to wait until Gary brings over a chain saw.  That's OK since lots of pine needles, pine cones, rocks, weeds, roots, and other nasty-looking stuff was left from where the trees once stood.

Lots of debris remained under the trees.

We each took a rake or a shovel and started to fill five-gallon pails with the afore-mentioned debris.  As Chris brought the buckets up to the front yard using the trailer hooked to his lawn mower, Rick went with him to unload the buckets into the back of our truck.  Lindsay and I stayed in the back yard and continued to fill more buckets.

Another load of debris is ready to be hauled up to the curb.

In the end, we filled about 50 buckets full which measured about 1/2 a yard of debris.  Then Rick and Chris hauled it all to the yard waste dump.  Their yard looks much better.  They still need to drop that final trunk and haul it up to the curb.  Their neighbor down the street takes the wood from there, which is fine with Chris and Lindsay.  As long as it is not in their yard, they don't care who takes it.

They know of a man who they can call to grind down the stumps.  Then they can fill in the spaces with good black dirt and add sod to give them a fresh, green yard.

Some of the tree branches wait to be loaded into the back of the truck.

Once we were home, we talked to the neighbor lady and asked her if she would like some low-hanging branches removed from her front trees.  We have seen her in the past practically crawl under some of the branches to cut her grass.  She was delighted with our offer, so we loaded those branches and a couple that had fallen in our back yard into our truck bed.  After lunch we drove to the dump once more to get rid of those limbs.

My final job of the day was to finish cutting the grass.  I had cut the sides and front yard a couple of days ago; now I wanted to cut the back so we could continue to water the new sod that we previously put down.  With all of the rain and the watering that we have done, the new sods seems to be taking well.  We actually may have a green back yard by the time fall arrives.