Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Little Tree of Horrors

Excuse me while I take a short break from our Peru trip... I need a little more time to prepare the most important day. Stay tuned!

We officially have a tree of horrors. No, it's not little like my post title says, I was just going for the spinoff of The Little Shop of Horrors... did you just get that song in your head like I did? But seriously, look closely at these first two pictures... can you spot the thorns that are, no joke, over two inches long?! Wicked. This wouldn't be a problem if the tree would play nice and keep the branches from hanging down so low. Mowing underneath has become a little bit like doing the limbo.

Our intent this past Sunday was to trim a few of those low branches so next weekend we could mow like normal people. Well that intent turned into taking half the tree down. I blame our neighbor, Ron. He was out in his backyard and came over to chat. I asked if he had a saw, meaning a normal saw, you know the type that you have to put some elbow grease into it. Of course Ron did and he brought it to us right away. Not three minutes later he decided that wasn't enough and brought out his electric saw. That lead to him helping us decide which branches should come down and which should probably stay to help keep the tree looking nice and even. And then we decided more branches that needed to come down. He kinda laughed and apologized for creating so much work... and then said good-bye. After all, he had his own yard work to tend to. On the bright side he also provided tough gloves that helped me grab the branches without getting stuck with thorns constantly.

I kick myself every time I do this, but I forgot to take a before picture. I guess because I didn't expect there to be much of an after picture. I did at least snap a picture of the pile we stacked near the curb for trash pickup.

And here is our final product. The tree looks great and still very healthy. I'm so glad we ended up tackling this project. Is it weird that we're kinda excited to mow now? Well Joe's got mowing duties this coming weekend, I can't afford to get nasty tan lines, I've got a wedding to be part of soon!!!!

No comments: