Tree Day{s}

Our much anticipated appointment with the tree people came on Friday, and this time, they did not have to reschedule with us.  They arrived bright and early at 8 AM and we were immediately enthralled with the process.  Seriously...my hubby did not leave the windows. ALL.DAY.

{If you follow me on Instagram, then this pic looks familiar!}

There were two teams of two...totalling four workers at our place.  One team worked on the group of trees next to the road with a cherry picker, and another team attacked some trees that needed to be climbed.  Here they are in action.

{Can you find him?  Let's play "Where's Waldo"...}

{Climbing high...}

{Out on a limb...}

{Just hanging around...}

{Swinging from tree to tree...}

The pruning and trimming of all of our trees took up most of the day, and the cherry and hemlock trees weren't dropped until the afternoon.  Here is a peak at the before's and after's. {I also had a video of the cherry tree being taken down, but my hubby's potty mouth is preventing it from being posted hehe.}  Our backyard is so much more open now, and I love it!

{Dead cherry tree, front and center...}

{Cherry tree to the left and hemlock growing into an oak tree on the right...}

{Cherry tree gone-zo!}

{See ya later, hemlock!}

{New view of the open backyard from the driveway...}

After those two trees went down, the process pretty much came to a halt {around 3:30 PM} because we had filled their chipper truck to the brim with all the wood that came down.  Yikes!

Unfortunately, that meant the process would continue on Monday and we wouldn't get to see this big oak in the front of our house come down.  Boooooooooo!

Oh well...everything happens for a reason, right?!?!

Welp, 8AM on Monday morning rolled and the crew returned to finish the job.  By the time we came home from work, our view of the big oak above now looked like this...

GONE-ZO!!  That big ole' tree was reduced to these big ole' chunks of soon-to-be firewood for my neighbors and in-laws.

Our yard only suffered a few bumps and bruises, which don't really show well in pictures.  Ooops!

I really wish I could invite each and every reader of this lil' blog {all 10 of you, including my Momma and Poppa Dukes} to our house to see the difference that was made by the tree work we had done.  Things are {most importantly} healthier, prettier and much more open.  Pictures will never do the work justice.

And there is still oneeee more day of tree fun to come!  All of our stumps are still hanging around...yes, the ones from the trees they took down and the ones left from small trees/large bushes that we removed from our jungle.  The crew is scheduled to come some time this week, but the rainy, icky days we've been having might put them on hold until next week.  Stay tuned!! :)

The Magic of Mulch!

Since the days of being outdoors are basically here, we have taken quite a few steps to transform the eyesore that is our landscaping.  I shared step one with you guys last week, and I foreshadowed that step two involved some mulch.

After a delivery of 8 yards {we still need 4 more} and quite a bit of sweat equity on the boys part {LOVE them}, our beds have finally came to life!

{These pictures were taken on different days and with different equipment...that's why there is different light, amounts of pollen in the beds and equipment strewn throughout the yard.  Forgive me!}

Things are not finished yet.  These pictures were "pre-tree appointment", we still need to get a strip of sod to go in the dirt that is left in the bed to the left of the front door and we need to mulch the bed on the other side of the driveway and continue to spread the mulch around the side of the house.

All that aside, I think it still looks a lot better than it used to!  Now, a couple before and afters {errr, progress shots} for fun. :)

Anyone else get their landscape on lately?!?!

Spring Is In The Air!

Like most people around the country, we enjoyed a very mild winter this year.  There was not much snow to speak of, unless you count that terrible October storm.  And although spring officially arrives tomorrow, I feel like we have been enjoying spring since the beginning of March.  Instead of "Coming in like a lion..." March brought us lots of mild temperatures and beautiful sunshine.  {The end of this week may even bring a record-breaking 80 degree day!} 

All of this uhhhhhhhhh-mazing weather is giving us a sneak peak at what may bloom in our yard this year.  We are anxious to see what will appear on our almost-half-an-acre since this is what the yard looked like when we bought our house.  {Yikes!}

Even though our yard {especially the back yard} is still a complete hot mess, at least we have a whole lot of daffodils popping up everywhere!!  Who needs grass when you have flowers randomly appearing in your dirt patches, right?!?!?!  {Yup, those are tiny hot pink arrows pointing everything out.}

In keeping with all things spring and the great outdoors, I'll fill you guys in on an appointment that the hubby and I had with a tree company this weekend.  We have a bagillion oak trees on our property, and most of them are planted close to each other, or close to our house.  We are hoping to selectively remove some of these trees over the years for the safety of our house, as well as the health of the trees and our lawn.

From the tree people {I'm so technical}, we learned that our town has restrictions regarding cutting down trees.  You can only cut down one healthy tree a year, unless you want to replant another tree in it's place.  So long story short, we are going to have twenty {yea, that's right...2-0} trees safety pruned, one large oak removed {it's next to our house and lifting the sidewalk...who knows what the roots are doing to the foundation of our house}, the dead cherry tree removed {it's the one with the birdhouse, front and center in the first picture above}, the hemlock you see below removed and a bunch of stumps ground down that we couldn't manually remove while we de-jungle-ified our house.

Unfortunately, the cherry died because it became infested with insects.  The tree person said that it's common because of it's sweet sap, and clearly, no one was tending to the property to save it.  The hemlock needs to come down because it's growing into the oak tree right behind it, and it's also stealing sunlight from my precious magnolia to it's left.  As if those two things weren't reason enough, we were informed it's $210 a year to treat that tree and keep it healthy.  Ummm, no thank you.  We aren't paying all that money to keep a tree that will kill two others.  {Luckily, the hemlock isn't big enough to count towards our healthy tree count, so we are okay to take it down for those of you keeping track.}

Welp...that is our tree saga.  Even though this is going to be a CRAZY expensive endeavor, it's totally worth it.  Our poor property has not been taken care of in years, and we really can't afford to have any huge branches come down on our brand new roof or break one of our brand new windows.

Anyone else have a super expensive home cost pop up lately?!?!

PS-I linked up to Thrifty Decor Chick's "Show Us Your Kitchens" linky party so I could show off our retro renovation in all it's glory. :)