Whew! This tiring week definitely didn’t start with a “let’s relax and eat bon-bons in our PJs” kind of weekend. It was a true work weekend at Heardmont. My mom was in town and she and my brother lent a huge hand in helping us clean up our little “forest.”
The 2009 ice storm did significant damage to all the trees in our yard. The devastation in our backyard couldn’t be ignored for long, but all the dead and fallen trees in our front yard, a.k.a. the forest, had to wait a lot longer to be addressed.
Here’s a shot of the forest before the work began:
It may be hard to see, but can you tell there are several trees falling and lots of dead limbs and brush on the ground? Well about 7 hours of work took care of that!
Probably the best way to show our progress will be with a little game we like to call Watch the Pile Grow!
Here’s a look at the end of our driveway after we pulled out the first dead stump of the day:
A little later on:
During the break for lunch:
After cleaning up all the fallen limbs and moving on to the “still standing” stuff:
And finally what the pile looked like at the end of the day, accompanied by 8 yard waste bags full of twigs and leaves:
Here’s another angle on the finished pile!
Whew! Not bad for a full day’s work, huh?
Can you tell how much cleaner the forest looks in this shot? Sure there’s still a lot of leaves and brush, but all the trees and shrubs are living still, from what we can tell, and it will look so nice in the spring when everything is in bloom!
We also did a lot of work on the sidewalk side of the yard. It went from this:
To this!
We definitely couldn’t have done it without all that help from Mom and Michael, so thanks guys!
Here are a few more of my favorite shots from the day.
My little bro, demonstrating Safety First!
My little monkey, chopping off some dead limbs:
Molly, enjoying the sun and her frisbee. She did such a good job listening to us and staying out of the road:
Molly: Woof! What was that?
Molly: Oh good, it was nothing. Guess I’ll smile for the camera.
Mom, Michael, and Molly – plum tucker’d out:
Stephen, after a hard day’s work:
I’m happy to report all evidence of our hard work was removed on Wednesday for a cool $120 by a nice guy on Craigslist, so all’s well that ends well. I guess it’s no wonder we were already worn out before this week began!
I’m hoping to catch up soon on all the projects we started this week. Come back soon to hear all about that project involving lumber I alluded to last week!
