Some Before and After Shots...

I'm a Lumberjack and I'm OK
I sleep all night and I work all day.
I cut down trees, I wear high heels
Suspenders and a Bra.
(OK - this is where I modify the song.)
I am a pretty girlie, just like my dear mama!

Monday was a lumberjack day for me.  I had the last tree cut down in the front yard and I cut down another one in the back yard.

Monday was glorious outside - a day where, when blessed to be off, one naturally gravitates outside. Lucky for me, it was also a day where my friend the tree faller (and yes, he's the one I have a terrible crush on) came over with his chainsaw and chopped down the final front yard tree, and then used said chainsaw to cut a HUGE stump down to ground.  So... you may recall - when I bought the house, the front looked like this:

And then, in October, my folks came up for a day - I had already cut down the small fir touching the house - and my Dad helped me pull all of the wisteria off off the front of the house... it then looked like this:

Now, after Monday's efforts, the front of my home is wide open and looks like this:

The big pile of branches in front of the house is all that remains of the tree that was removed.

In addition to cutting down the tree (which was growing up into both power and telephone lines and actually HAD to come down, my friend the faller also helped level out a stump - a BIG stump - that was actually hidden by the tree that was taken out.  My best guess is that it was once a HUGE maple tree -  the stump was cut into two pieces - two BIG pieces - which I ended up rolling over & stacking up beside my front door - this is about 3 feet high, by the way.

The stump (again, I *think* it may be maple) looked like it is spalted - so my dad has said he'll take the stump pieces and see what he can save & turn, here's a shot of what spalting does to raw wood:

After cutting down of stuff was done, my friend headed off (incidentally, to buck up firewood for me) and I got to work piling up other stuff:

Then, into the back yard.

When I bought the house, the back yard looked like this.  This picture is taken standing on the patio facing the back fence - note the metal arbour:

The Sumac on both sides were taken out in October when Dad came up.  Bearing in mind that the trees and shrubs still there are all without leaves for the winter, but this is what it looks like now:

The yard does look very bare and open right now, but once the trees start to bush out with leaves again, my privacy will come back and the yard will be absolutely gorgeous!  An added bonus, now that the other evergreen is gone, is that the pond's full prettiness is exposed. I'm thinking a couple of water lilies and some goldfish (to eat the mosquito larvae) will be perfect back there.

Finally we come to the piles. Stuff to be hauled away to the dump, and piles of branches and other pieces of various trees and shrubbery - all to be hauled out into the bush to be allowed to rot gently back into the earth. I had considered hiring a chipper, but am told that the branches are too curvy for that - so off to rot in the forests it is.

With love across the waters,