Timber!!!!

Dumpster day was upon us yesterday. As an annual event, Tara and I try to get rid of at least 2 or 3 major items when the dumpsters are left for the day. Unfortunately, everyone else on the block has the same idea. You have to get out pretty early to actually have room for your trash. Even though I was stuck at work, Tara was able to get rid of the left over rocks from the dog run, a lot of old brush, the burned up BBQ grill (it took about 3 hours for someone to take a dive after that treasure), and some rotted out timbers from the backyard. Still, we wanted to get more out of clean up day. Our prayers were answered when Dave from next door said he wanted to work on the the Chinese Elm trees that crossed from his front yard into ours.

I've wanted to tackle this project for years, so when the offered was made I jumped on it. Before you knew I had scaled our pine tree with the sawsall and was lopping off branches left and right. It was a little tricky when I started to cut some of the major branches, but there's nothing like the sound of the crack when gravity takes over and the branch comes down. The first one was a bit scary as it broke and headed right for the roof, but our little pine held up the carnage and the carport remained relatively unscathed. After about an hour, the cutting was finished and we had removed 3 large limbs from our least favorite trees. The rest of the night was spent cutting of the foliage and saving the limbs for firewood. I can't tell you how glad I am we finally cut down those awful trees! It's even better that everything was cleaned up before bed and the dumpsters around the block were full to the brim.