Some Serious Yard Work

Our house needed a face lift.

Not only do we have 8-9 fruit trees around our yard, the house was surrounded with huge and overgrown hedges.

When we moved into the house last September it was a little late in the season to do much.

There were apples EVERYWHERE, a few plumbs, and tons of leaves.

We are also ill-equiped to handle yard work. 

Since we only own a lawn mower, weed whacker, and hedge trimmer...

Thanks to the family we were able to tackle a big part of the yard this spring.

My Dad drove up from California with his array of yard equipment and we went to work.

Dad was only going to be there for 2 full days. Brent was only there for 1.5.

We spent most of the first day getting all the chainsaws working. 

By the time we got things functioning I had to head to class. (3-8pm)

When I got home I had a mini break down.

When I returned from school Brent and Dad had done a BUNCH of work. 

Our yard was nothing but 5' piles of branches and bushes all around.

I was slightly overwhelmed knowing it would just be Dad and I for the next day.

It was way more work than I had anticipated.

Plus the landfill charged quite a bit per load.

Two loads had already cost $40 and looking at our yard we had at least 10 more.

So, I called in reinforcements with a plea for my sanity. 

Thankfully Carleen made the trek over and my Mom rented a wood chipper to alleviate having to make any more trips to the landfill.

We were able to get it all taken care of.

Sadly after one of the large Cyprus bushes were cut down we found a blue bird nest with 4 babies in it. They didn't make it. I felt sooo bad. I tried to save the ones that were still alive, but the mom took them out and killed them. I guess she knew they wouldn't make it. 

Anyways, I'm depressing myself again...

We were all sore and tired from the work. For my Dad and I it was 3.5 days straight of cutting, pruning, raking, shoveling and loading.

The house looks so much more open.

Now we just have to really brainstorm and agree on what to put around the house.

This is the before picture. 

The apple blossoms are beautiful, but they only lasted about a week.

All of those bushes were growing right up on the house. Full of bugs and pushing up on our eaves.  These beautiful trees produced hundreds of crab apples that killed our lawn last fall.

 This is the after picture.

The house looks pretty naked and all the apple blossoms are gone.

Still, it opened up 4-5 feet just in the front yard having those trees/bushes out.

 Before: Front of house

 After: Front of house

(Brent thinks it's too naked.)

He wants to put stuff around it.

 And you can see the stumps still need to come out!

 And here is a little video of the dirty work...

******************************************

Thanks again DAD & MOM (and Carleen) for all of your hard work.

It really meant the world to me to see everyone working so hard to help Brent and I accomplish this goal. I got teary eyed a few times, I was so moved by your willingness to do so much, even though both of you were in pain.

******************************************