Flashback

Before - Overgrown brush and trees blocking sun

 

During the spring while we were finalizing plans and going for the variance we decided to get a head start on a few property changes.

The first was doing something about the large number of trees on the lot. While trees are always welcome in my book, the ones on this lot had grown out of control. There were clumps of bushes that had grown woody and there were a number of trees that had been allowed to grow in groves. These groves, which were on the south side of the house, blocked the sun. This in turn made the house dark, damp and a bit smelly (add that to the fact that it had been closed up for over a year).

We both like sun so the trees needed to be thinned out. The trees were a mix of cedar and maples. Some of the maples had grown so close together, that they were stunting the growth of each other and causing some to start to rot. Also, in front of the house we had a beautiful maple with a large, round crown. It looked stately. However, upon a closer look, we realized that it was so rotted you could easily put your hand inside of the hollow that was once the center of the tree. It was dangerous and had to go.

In the backyard, we had a similar large maple. Unfortunately though, it was heavily shading a beautiful Japanese maple that had nice flowing limbs like a beech would. While we hated to take down the maple, we felt it would open up the back yard and help the Japanese maple grow and flourish.

Also, around the yard and the along the foundation of the house were a number of bushes that had probably been there for a number of years. While I’m sure they were beautiful at one time, age had taken its toll and they were now woody, clumpy and overgrown.

And truthfully, many of the trees were in the same location where the addition was going to go.

So to get a jump start on construction and stay ahead of that curve as well as to make the lot safer and increase the sunlight, we hired a tree company to come and take care of them.

They removed somewhere around twenty trees and trimmed up numerous others. They did a great job. We weren’t sure what the neighbor’s thought though because at one point as they were working and piling up logs and branches, Abby drove by and saw a group of folks from the neighborhood standing pointing and talking to one another. I’m sure they were talking about how sad it was to be taking down all of those beautiful trees. And we couldn’t have agreed more. It was sad and we would have liked to have kept them. But it was work that had to be done given the declining health of the trees.

The crew was great, there was hardly a leaf left behind at the end of the next day. And it was remarkable how much added sunlight now streamed into the house. You could actually feel the new warmth instead of the cold dampness. We opened the windows and let the house air out aided by its new friend, the sun. What a difference.

The house was beginning to have our touch on it. Yay! Progress.

Sort of.

Sun!