Trees

We have been waiting weeks to have the dead pine trees taken out of the backyard.  Our area has been hit hard with pine bore beetles.  They infest the inside of the pine tree and eat it from the inside out - you can actually see saw dust at the base of the tree.  Anyway, we had four that were dead and we had two more that needed to come out due to their location near the new addition.  Last Wednesday and Thursday the tree man was here and the dead trees are now gone.

 One of the men would go up in a bucket

 Tie onto limbs ........

While the men on the ground kept an eye on where the

limbs were going to fall.

Then it was time to top the tree .......

 Going ........

(see the rope that the guys on the ground were pulling?)

 going........

 going........

 Gone....

 Then it was time to cut up the big pieces and stack them for the truck to pick up and haul away

Picking the logs up

 Then they would come in with the stump grinder and get rid of all the stumps so, one day, we will have a nice smooth yard.

All nice and cleared.

 The pictures above were all taken on Thursday -

Wednesday was the day that they just "felled" the trees.

They were all in the side yard shown below after they were all gone.  What the guys did was tie a rope on the tree up high, then three of the guys would grab the rope while another guy would cut the base.  When the tree started to fall the guys holding the rope would let go and run.  We only lost one red bud tree due to this little procedure, but Dan didn't mind.  We have more in the yard and to tell the truth, Dan isn't a big fan of red buds anyway.

Oh, there was also the bush shown above.  It sorta got smushed under the truck.  Oh well, at least the dead trees are history.

The other thing we did last week was get the curtains up in the family room.

We had ordered some swags and they came in Friday - we got them all

ironed and hung and we thing they really help soften the windows.

Saturday morning we went to a garage sale in the neighborhood.  Picked up a couple of things - but nothing big.  We were also going to go to a sale at a shop in Mayo but we had the furniture repairmen coming so, by the time we got there at 1:30 they had already closed.

Dan was able to fix the issue with the sectional after the guys that showed up didn't have the correct part.  I wasn't sure that the warranty would still be in effect if we fixed it - but after waiting for over a month for the part and then not having the correct thing - we decided to just fix it ourselves.

Saturday night we watched the Football Hall of Fame induction ceremony - of course they saved Brett for last - but it was a good speech.  I was really excited that we were going to finally have a football game on Sunday night BUT there was an issue with some paint they used on the field that made it sticky and hard so they cancelled the game.  Bummer!!!!  Now I have to wait another two weeks before the first preseason game will be telecast.

We have been watching the Olympics some - watched Michael Phelps win his 21st gold medal last night and saw the girls gymnastic team win gold.  Don't know what else we will watch but at least it is something.

This week we are working on getting shelves put up in the office/craft room closet.  I need a lot of storage and this will be for not only my craft supplies but also extra storage for stuff that we don't have space for anywhere else.  I'm excited to get these done and then I'll be able to get everything finally organized!  Hopefully I'll have pictures for that next week.