Tree Removal Inspires Art

by Stacy (the Random Cool Chick) on June 18, 2013 · 5 comments

in Wednesday Hops,Wordful Wednesday,Wordless Wednesday

You regular readers know that we’ve been working like maniacs getting our house ‘prettied up’ so we can put it on the market when we move later this summer.  You know, doing all the things we talked about doing while living here the last 10 years, which will of course make us want to stay since it’ll be the way we envisioned it when we first bought our house.  Isn’t that typically how it goes?

One of the things we definitely needed to do is have the two trees we planted out front removed, since one died last year and the other one was also dying.  This is a picture of the trees from about five years ago:

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Looking from this angle, the one on the right was completely dead, and the one on the left only had about half its leaves bloom this year, clearly in its way out, too.  Here’s a shot from the side the hubby took last week:

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Since we live on a busy road, and the hubby isn’t a tree-climbing guy due to his fear of heights, we figured we’d better call in the professionals.  They came armed and ready to tackle the trees in question.  Time for the cherry picker:

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Starting to look awfully bare out front:

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Along the side of the house in between our house and the neighbor, we had an annoying Mulberry Tree.  At least that’s what I think it was – it did produce berries every year that would fall on the sidewalk running around the house and purple staining juice would get tracked everywhere.  And the birds would eat the berries then leave purple bird poop on the back patio, on our cars, and any other object they deemed bomb-worthy.

The branches were constantly having to be trimmed to keep them away from the house, so we decided it was definitely time for it to go, too:

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The dudes got to work:

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They also trimmed some branches off the ginormous maple tree that towers above the Summer House, then finished taking down the rest of the trees out front so they could finish up by digging out the stumps:

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The whole time they were out there working, they had an Observer keeping an eye on them:

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The tree dudes brought a wood chipper with them to make short work of the branches and trunks – we asked them to leave the chips behind so we could use it as mulch for our flower beds, which are in desperate need for some fresh mulch.  Recycling at its finest!

Princess Nagger was watching out the front window, and spied a section of trunk she wanted to keep, since she envisioned turning it into something artistic.  When the guys were taking a break, she scurried out and grabbed this:

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The gears were turning as she turned it over in her hands, thinking about what she would do with it.  I stood it up on its short flat end and suggested she draw on it, then we’d use a wood burning tool to etch her drawing in permanently.  She loved the idea, and immediately got to work, taking no time at all to draw this:

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Pretty cool, no?  We’re waiting for it to dry out completely before we do the wood burning part, and the hubby even picked up a set of bits for the Dremel tool to carve out the edges to give it a 3D effect.  I’ll be sure to share when it’s completely done.

This will be a silly question, but do you creatively recycle?

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Wordless or Wordful or Wordy or Wordish – feel free to link up:

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For Wordless Wednesday, be sure to visit Wordless Wednesday, and Go Graham Go for more great Wordless Wednesday Posts.

More Wordless and Wordful fun:

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Time keeps slipping away and I keep blinking.  At least my cold seems to finally be on its way out – now if the weather would cooperate and not be so annoyingly humid, I could actually get some stuff done around here.  Yes, I’m a dreamer, why do you ask?

Speaking of dreaming…  I think I actually do have the hubby convinced that having a dumpster delivered and put in the driveway next to the house to extricate unnecessary crap in a more efficient manner (read: less trudging up and down the stairs in the humidity) instead of back by the barn is a good idea. 

Here’s some perspective (I’m standing in the driveway in front of the barn and in front of where the hubby was suggesting we have the dumpster delivered to, looking back at the house):

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And to give you even more perspective, our ceilings on both the first and second floor are 10+ feet high, and the windows you see are 7-feet tall and 3-feet wide.  The third floor is the attic, but it’s a finished attic that also has added space by way of dormers in the front and back (you can sort of see the back dormer through the trees).  The attic is where the majority of the stuff I need to purge happens to be.

There are 16 steps from the first floor to the second floor, 14 steeper and narrower steps from the second floor to the third floor attic, and five steps from the back door to the back patio, and a bazillion steps from the back patio to the spot I took the shot. 

Well, OK, maybe not a bazillion, but by the time I carry a heavy load all the way down from the top floor to here, it will sure feel like it.  Especially since I’ll have to go all the way back up to get another load of dumpster discard stuff – and there’s probably going to be at least 50 trips or more to get all of it taken care of.

I think I finally convinced the hubby the better placement of said dumpster is towards the front of the driveway next to the house so I can heave stuff out the window at the top (which is almost parallel to the dormer you can sort of see). 

That will exponentially speed up the looming purge process, and save a bazillion steps.  Plus it will make the purge process that much more fun, since I’ll be rigging a slide or chute to get the stuff from the window to the dumpster without just tossing it to the ground.

Now we just have to figure out when we’ll get to that point where we can use the dumpster so we aren’t finding stuff later that should have been tossed in the dumpster.  I figure if I start packing from the first floor and work my way up to the third floor, by the time I reach the top it will be time to get the dumpster. 

That way I can segregate as I purge and put stuff into three piles: 1) keep/pack/move pile, 2) donation pile and 3) dump that sh*t pile.  Well, you know what I mean for number 3.  Good thing I didn’t list it as #2.

Speaking of bodily functions (ahem)…  The cats like to take over my chair when I’m not sitting in it (and sometimes when I am) so the other day when I relocated Ralph off my chair and went to sit down, he decided he didn’t like that I moved him, so he tried to get back in my chair.  And  me, being the nice person that I am, trying not to sit on the poor cat, scooped him back up as I sat down – only in my downward momentum whacked my elbow on the edge of my desk.

My desk is currently an unfinished custom desk (one of the many projects our former carpenter friend started but never finished [which means we have that much more work to get done before we move] before he ran away from all his responsibilities and turned into a deadbeat dad hiding from the system so he doesn’t have to pay his ex child support – but that’s another post for another day). 

I’m guessing that the desk is at least an inch too high (for me and my chair) but very solidly built out of wood.  So when my elbow met with the unforgiving edge of my desk, I heard a distinct ‘crack’ which then triggered my brain’s response to the pain almost immediately instead of the usual delay.  Luckily it doesn’t feel like I broke my elbow (can you actually break an elbow?) but I have less hand strength today because of the injury. 

Good thing typing isn’t like rowing, or I’d be typing in circles and you’d never be able to figure out what I was saying.

In other news…  I finally acquired a nice big stack of moving boxes, so packing will commence in the next few days – I figure once I get started the momentum will kick in and I can knock out a room in a day or three (depending on the room, and depending on the extensive stuff collected in said room, and depending on the number of interruptions).  With the hubby’s work schedule being that he’s here all day long, interruptions have and will abound.  Wish me luck.

Being so crazy busy I’ve been lax about taking many pictures the last couple of weeks – but at least I found this funny on Facebook yesterday so this post won’t be all text and no visual:

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That’s a wrap for this week – link up and join in the fun, everyone is welcome, random or not. Be sure to visit your fellow randomizers so they don’t feel so lonely.

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Keeping the random alive – feel free to snag a badge and play along – one for my wino friends:

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And one for my non-wino friends:

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I’m also linking up with two stellar ladies, Shawn and Impulsive, the lovely hosts of Talk To Us Tuesday. There are no rules so link away.

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More Tuesday hops – if you’re stopping by here from there, please do me a favor and follow via LinkyFollowers – since I was robbed of my GFC followers when the cads at Google decided to boycott non-Blogger blogs. The Tuesday hops seems to have diminished – if you have one let me know and I’ll add you here, too!

 

 

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If I were to talk like some of the people in this area, I’d say something like “It’s been crazy busy around these here parts” because it has.  But it’s nice to take a break once in a while and enjoy some great music – so thankfully, even though it’s Monday, today’s the day to do just that.

Our previous Spotlight Dancer Danielle from Royalegacy suggested the theme for this week should be SciFi music.  I love good SciFi but was a little stumped on what to pick for this week – though it was sure fun trying to find something good.  The hubby gets credit for the first one – it was his suggestion and we both giggled like dorks while we watched it.

We all know him for his role in Star Trek, but did you know that starting in the 60′s, William Shatner, riding high on his Star Trek fame, began his idiosyncratic musical career?  Basically his method was musical schtick.  He wouldn’t sing songs, he would speak them, often in a melodramatic, exaggerated fashion.

In 1978 William Shatner hosted The Saturn Awards (which is an award similar to the Oscars, but this one is specifically for SciFi, Fantasy and Horror films).  He “sang” a version of “Rocket Man”, the 1972 song co-written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin.  It’s Bernie Taupin who introduces Shatner, with Karen Black introducing Taupin.

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Give a listen to (and be prepared to giggle) William Shatner with “Rocket Man”:

It goes without saying that this next one is the epitome of SciFi.

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So we’re going to just jump right into 2001: A Space Odyssey (theme):

Next up is a favorite of mine – the music and the movie.  The music from the movie is credited as heralding the beginning of a revival of grand symphonic scores in the late 1970s. 

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For your listening pleasure, I give you Star Wars:

Next up is one I didn’t think to put in the SciFi category, but it totally makes sense. 

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Here you go – enjoy The Hunger Games:

Last, but certainly not least, is one that I absolutely loved and used to sing all the time whenever it would come on the radio.  I couldn’t find the background information about it, so I’ll just let you enjoy it.

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Rock it out as NSync performs “Space Cowboy”:

Have a great Monday, Yippie-Yi-Yay!

Now on to the particulars of Monday’s Music Move’s Me:

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I have the supreme honor and privilege of being a co-host with the inimitable Xmas Dolly and our musical cohorts, Callie from JAmericanSpice, Cathy from Cathy Kennedy’s Blog, and for the month of May, our Honorary Co-Conductor, Becca at Everyday Life.

Want to join in the fun? It’s easy – just find a tune that rocks your boat, post it and link up – don’t forget to grab Xmas Dolly…er, um, I mean her button…over at her place here. Check out Xmas Dolly’s sidebar for the random themes we sport each week – and you can always ask for a specific theme of music you like, too. Check out the other music lovahs and let’s jam!

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INTRODUCING OUR “SPOTLIGHT DANCER”:

 

 

APPLAUSE! APPLAUSE!




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The awesome Run DMT also hosts Music Monday (who graciously helps out with our hostessing every time we need it, and who I had the privilege of meeting in person at BlogHer – she’s even more adorable than I imagined):

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More Monday Hops – hop along, won’t you?

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