Tree Trimming

Y’know how you can start out doing one little thing and with no intention on your part it can turn into two seemingly unnegotiable weekends worth of work? OK, that just happened to me and Hubby.

For us, it started with an afternoon where Hubby and I took a perimeter look at our house, pulling weeds, cutting down mini-saplings that were growing in the bushes, pondering whether that hasta we transplanted 2 years ago would bloom this year, wondering whether the 25 year old air conditioner that sits on a slab in the side yard would start again this year, bemoaning the fact that the supposedly indestructible peppermint that I used to dry into tea has vanished, picking up trash. Just the usual. This was the weekend after Memorial Day, when we planted tomatoes in large buckets and I planted the Wee Garden with four varieties of sunflowers that are due to grow into four heights. Y’know, the Midwest in the springtime.

Well, the next weekend, Hubby and I are sitting on the deck one morning looking over our fence into our side yard and I see half a dozen saplings growing up out of the pine trees. Big saplings. Not to be toyed with saplings. Saplings that mean it. The pine trees are enormous – maybe 35 feet high with enormous girths and very wide boughs. Some of the saplings are as high as 6 feet. I  say we have to get those out of there. Hubby suggests we get to it. It’s early yet.

We have to do a little pruning of the pine trees to even get at the saplings. Just a little, mind. One snip there, one there.  Hubby is on his knees covered in dripping sap crawling under this enormous tree and before I can blink he has the bottom two layers of one tree cut away and he is moaning and complaining in the voice he reserves especially and particularly for the maintenance efforts of the people who used to own our house. Thus begins a steady stream of blame and complaints that I have learned not to interfere with lest I am blamed as a a. naive and b. unsupportive spouse. I note that soon one tree looks very different from the other tree and the saplings that need to be removed are on the other side of the pine trees entirely.

“Ah, hubby? I think it’s time to stop and move over to the other side of the tree.”

“Let’s start taking the brush over to the driveway.”

“Ah, hubby? I like the trees the way they are, let’s just leave them.”

“Look what’s under here!  A concrete slab, an old rake, fence posts, and a barrel.”

“Really? Wow, those people who lived here before us must have used this as a dumping ground.”

“Those dumb people who lived in this house immediately before us. They… blah… blah… blah”

“But hubby? We don’t know what we’re doing and we should really stop now.”

“Nonsense.”

Now, I believe that trees have souls. Pruning a tree for the sake of it’s health and the safety of the humans and homes who live near it is fine by me.  But reckless trimming with no plan whatsoever does not fall into my general comfort level.

But shortly put, once we started we couldn’t stop. There was just no way to stop without the trees damning us. They looked ridiculous half an hour after he got in there. We had to make it work. And we did. 27 lawn bags, two trimmed pine trees, most of two bushes, one truck of brush to the chipping center and more than 40 hours of labor later and we’re looking pretty good. More to go on that side of the house in years to come, but we may be done for this year.

I’m thinking of getting a little bench for under there. I’d have “before” pictures but like I said we were into this without planning.