Arbor Day Wreckers

You can just call Shane and me home wreckers. Or lumberjacks. The terms are pretty synonymous around here. We've spent the last two weekends creating nightmares for the Arbor Day Foundation and the PETA people, and ourselves, if we're being completely honest.  


Seriously, you should've seen my arms, it looked like I was attacked by a psycho kitten...


You see, we had these trees...not the giant sycamore in the front that received the only water we donated to our yard last year, we love that tree and look forward to sharing a long and enjoyable relationship with it. It was the other trees, you know, "those ones". The two pear trees that produced pears so un-enjoyable, messy and irritating that we ignored they were there until we had to rake the leaves and dead rotten pears into a pile and then watch as the neighborhood squirrel population endured weeks of really good pear brew. No kidding, it smelled like a brewery and there were some very questionable scenarios with squirrels that had had more than their fill of overripe pears. It was probably a really blessing to the local squirrel AA chapter to have taken those two trees down. The kids were upset about our plans last year to take away their beloved trees, until I made them join me on a rake day. One hour into raking leaves, pears and branches they decided they weren't that attached.

The other tree was the large Chinese elm in the back. Now coming from Utah I've always regarded the Chinese elm as a weed. They sprout under the most desperate conditions, in the most desperate places, and try to suck the life out of you and anything living around them. Plus, they rot out and have a high rate of blowing over in high winds...We live in West Texas, we experience high winds on a daily basis. We decided to take out the hideous risk before it threatened our kids, car or house for another year.

Two weekends equal three trees down (yay!), two trips to the dump (and according to the kids "not the fun part of the dump where the big machines are"), more scratches on my arms than I can count (think really crazy kitten on caffeine), two bodies full of really stiff and sore muscles (who knew wielding a chainsaw, a set of loppers and climbing trees and large limbs could be such a great workout?), a gigantic pile of firewood (that will likely last several generations since we can't really use our fireplace...something about a family of birds that found a home in our chimney...) and a nearly homeless family of squirrels...(yeah, that's the homewrecker part).

While we were playing lumberjacks, complete with a really large limb of a really big tree, attached to a tow rope so I could successfully guide the limb away from the roof and our garage (if only I had pictures, it would make your day), we noticed a squirrel run up the tree and start yelling at us from a higher branch. When the limb finally fell she ran away, but we continued to hear angry squirrel chatter but didn't see the squirrel again. However, upon further search of the dead, rotted out limbs we'd been cutting down, we found a lovely squirrel home, complete with a baby squirrel. Thankfully, (and this is for all animal lovers and PETA members out there), Mama squirrel has successfully been reunited with Baby squirrel, their home is safe, for now. (little side note, as I was posting this Shane came home to check on the squirrel family. Seem that Mama squirrel was not happy with her tree rights, and successfully abandoned her squatters quarters with Baby squirrel, and left nothing behind but a tree branch full of squirrel poop and fluff).

So, without further ado, and because I've been lacking in pictures lately... Have a glance at what we're looking at now in our yard. Besides the dirt and the loads of firewood I want to direct you to the hideously big (and I know they look ridiculously small in these pics) piles of branches we still need to attack, chop, lop and load for another boring trip to the dump. Also, in the pictures? The abandoned squatters hole full of fluff and apparently no baby squirrel. Thank you PETA, we're safe.