Yard Work

The first morning of the first day of our long Memorial Day weekend was spent out in the hot, hot sun with a chainsaw and the Bobcat as we eliminated a tree out front and a huge weigela bush out back.

The tree was a yew, and was planted by the front deck steps 13 years ago when it was a wee, tiny little thing. It was a memorial gift from a dear friend, given to me when my mom died. You can understand why I was reluctant to take it out, even with Greg telling me for the past few years that it was too big and needed to go.

It had gotten too tall for me to prune by myself, and was lopsided on two sides because of the branches I had to cut. See where the branches grew through the rails by the steps? 

Here you can see how the magnolia kept some of the top branches on one side from growing.

An objective look at the tree last week had me finally agreeing to take it out.

We started cutting off branches. Greg had borrowed his dad’s little electric chainsaw that was lightweight enough that I could use it with no problem, yet heavy duty enough to take care of a 13 year old tree. This was my first time to use a chainsaw, and while cutting tools and I have a checkered past, I’m happy to say I did not lose a limb while cutting down this tree. (Get it? “Lose a limb”? Heehee.)

It seriously took just a few minutes before that big yew was reduced to this:

Randy arrived with the kids so they could help clean up branches, and Greg recruited him to help pull out the stump with the Bobcat.

You can see how it was in there so deep and so tight that it lifted the back wheels off the ground. They decided to cut it off at ground level instead…

Around on the other side of the house, I asked Greg to remove this huge overgrown weigela.

I think we planted this about eight years ago? Maybe less, but there was a lot of dead branches inside and a couple of good-sized trees growing in the middle. Besides, we need the space for Bradley’s new swing.

We made short work of this one with the chainsaw, then Greg just used the Bobcat bucket to dig out the roots.

Doesn’t that look better? You can see the chainsaw on the bench – a handy little thing to have around!  Did you also notice the 20-ish year old Little Tykes picnic table? My dad gave that to my kids for Christmas when Jess was 2 or 3 years old. It went through daycare kids, several years at Head Start on the playground, and looks a little worn, but is still in great shape! Anyway, like I said, this will be the spot for Bradley’s new swing. (If you click on this photo and enlarge it, you’ll see the nail ball in front of the bench. Yeah, that’ll have to be moved if we have swings back there…)

So having things in your garden and then removing/replacing them are normal cycles, and as much as I hated removing that yew, I’ll choose to put something there that brings me joy. This way I’ll still have that warm feeling of remembering my mom when I look at that spot.