Ben's Day "Off"

Ben has been working at Home Depot part-time and this is the first Saturday he has had off in a while. So it was the perfect opportunity to cut down the tree on the fence line. Here is a little tour of our back yard and some pictures of our tree removal process.

Just a pile of wood from the branches we cut down during the week. We started this project a few weeks ago. (Thanks John and Mary for letting us borrow your chainsaw and thanks to our neighbors who let us borrow their extension ladder.)

A stump in the middle of our yard from our first tree removal.

The corner of the yard that was once the home of the killer poison ivy. Ben was my hero and removed all evidence of the offending plant. I am extremely allergic to poison ivy. It isn't pretty.

Just a few of the bricks and rocks we have had to remove since moving into this house. The yard was very overgrown and contained some various decorative elements that may have been beautiful at one time, but were old and worn out. Just behind this pile of bricks you can see a remnant of our statue of Mary that adorned the center of our backyard. That's a story for another time. It is common in this city to have statues of saints in your yard to bestow certain blessings for your home.
Ummm . . . this is our fire pit. But of course it is illegal to burn anything in the city.

This is a picture of our ancient cottonwood tree that is a humongous monster. Ben cut down the "smaller" tree pictured the lower left. This cottonwood blankets the neighborhood in downy cotton in the spring and showers the block with leaves in the fall. And we are all going to have to deal with that, because there is no way Ben is going to climb this one to cut it down. It is a pretty tree and we do enjoy the shade . . .

And now the real adventure.....

I am at the other end of the rope. My job was to provide the counter-weight so the branches wouldn't just come crashing down on the neighbor's chain link fence or garage or swing back into Ben. But that was pretty easy really since Ben strategically used the rope and saw. He did all the hard work and the fourth graders think he's Spiderman. Now that I'm using my camera more, I need to make sure it doesn't distract me from the other things I'm supposed to be doing. At one point Ben said, "Linda!" "What?!" "Pull!" "I'm just trying to document our adventure!" And with conversation like that, perhaps I should title this blog, "When Blogging Can be Dangerous." Oh well . . . He'll appreciate the pictures later.