It's Christmas

Well, maybe I can get away with, "It's the Christmas Season!"

Photo taken upon our return from the Blaze of Lights 2011.

Christmas trees in both turrets ... we are ready!

Look what I found behind these bushes

There's a garage!! Did you know there was one back there? Look closely. ☺

As you can see, between our house and the garage is another obnoxious row of overgrown bushes. Immediately after our traditional Saturday breakfast of pancakes and sausage (Yum!), Kevin headed out to begin the day's work.


He started by trimming back the first clump and, from previous experience pulling out landscaping, was hoping that we would be able to wrap the chain around each one and pull them out with the truck.

Here he is hitching it up.

I got to document.

Attempt #1

Attempt #3

I missed the second attempt. Well, after three, Kevin had enough of the chain sliding up and off without pulling the bush out that we decided to just dig them out.

Yeah, what do you get when you combine frustrated husband with a stubborn shrub? A broken shovel handle. Yep. So, I made a quick trip to Family True Value and returned with a new shovel to continue with.

Mid way through the morning, Ethan was helping Kevin and our neighbor boy, N., again came over to help with the yard work. (Remember him from the last trimming? He's such a helpful kid.)

Sorry about the shadows. N is on the left and Ellie and Ethan are on the right. Notice they all have shovels to help dig out the roots.

Then the party grew. Two more neighbor boys came to join in the fun. Welcome, neighbor A. and his friend J. They thought this looked like so much fun they scrambled to find shovels of their own too.

Five children working at the roots of this line of shrubbery.

It was great! They were having so much fun and Kevin just let them "work" while he trimmed out the rest of the bushes and pulled out the back two.

Finally, just before noon all of the bushes were pulled out of the ground and the last of them where hauled away after our lunch break.

Since Kevin thought that project might take most of the day, we were pleasantly surprised to have enough time this afternoon to move around to the alley side of the house and trim up some of those trees and overgrowth too.

We were very busy and productive outside today. So much so that I forgot to get "after" shots before dusk set in. Here's what I have for now. We'll take new ones tomorrow so you can see what it really looks like.

Look whose vehicles are parked in the garage!

View at the back steps of the wrap-around porch underneath the kitchen windows.

All in all, we are making progress. Man, does that feel good! (Unless you are my shoulders, Kevin's back ... )

Blood, sweat and tears

If you take a look at the house in the upper right, you just may notice the overgrown foliage all along the left side of the house.

It's ridiculous. Eventually, we'll be taking all of it out and redoing all of the landscaping around the house. But, for now. we just wanted to trim it back so it still protects the house through the winter but isn't so obnoxious.

All last Saturday afternoon, Kevin worked really hard to trim them back to get things looking a little cleaner. He started with the electric trimmer, but the bushes were so thick and overgrown, that he needed to switch to the hand trimmer. It's a good thing he's so tall!

We thought for sure, this was one solid row of bushes, but as it turned out there were just a few planted that had just spread out like crazy. So, after Kevin finished trimming one up, I would go underneath and trim up the stragglers and random stuff growing out of ground. After Ethan woke from his nap he come out to help too, and then our neighbor's son, N., came over to help too.

They were so great! N. went and got two little rakes that they used to clean out the underbrush and they had a ton of fun using the small hand trimmer too.

I was a complete slacker and didn't take any pictures during the process. Clearly, that's something I need to work on.

For now, just the "after" will have to suffice.

Ah! Now doesn't that look better? Not great, but definitely better. :)