Lanscaping

Hello July!  June was a rainy month, so much so that it set the record as the 3rd rainiest in area history.  The last time we had more rain in June was back in ’93.

All of that rain has made the ground swollen with water and couple that with gusty winds and you have the perfect recipe for downed trees.  This morning we woke up and discovered that the tree on the property line had finally succumbed to gravity and fell under its own weight.

Our neighbors rented a chainsaw and had it turned into firewood by lunch.

If you noticed the pile of dirt at the bottom of the picture, that was my doing.  I wasn’t about to let this all day chainsaw rental go to waste, as I had my own lumber jacking to do.  Here was the target.

This small tree was almost dead last year when we moved in and it was completely dead this summer.  The squirrels liked to perch in it and that was about all it was good for.  I started by transplanting a bunch of hostas that were growing around the trunk to safer homes in the yard.  Then I set about digging a big hole around the trunk.

Apparently, hostas attract slugs, so I found a few behemoths.

After a couple sweaty hours of digging it was time to put my tree slaying plan in action.  I was simply going to push it over.

TIMBER!

The best part was that there was no stump left in the ground.  I just backfilled all of the dirt that I had dug out and now you’d never even know a tree was ever there.

By doing the work myself, I saved between $125-450.  I also got a great workout in!