Shave and a Haircut

This weekend I took a bit off the top... both of my hair, and of the apartment's trees. Dad and I helped with the trees.

Trees before:

Those are elms, growing way too close to the foundation, and pruned to within an inch of their lives.

Dad first tried using his truck:

The group of three was too strong, so we tried one at a time. The first one was the dead one, and it snapped off at the base. The other two weren't dead... and thus were able to bend 90 degrees and escape virtually unscathed. Wow.

So, out came the chainsaw. It was a nice little electric fellow... not too loud, not too heavy.

After:


Turns out the tree on the east was being eaten from the inside out:


The crazy lady and her husband disapproved of the tree removal. Since I disapprove of *them* (mostly their smoking and drinking, but I wouldn't be fond of them even if they did give up both those vices), I don't really care. The trees *didn't* look good, no matter what the C's thought, and the trees were too close to the foundation.

We took out the Manitoba maple stump at the front too:

We dug down, cut it below the soil level, and then put the soil back on top. Hopefully that'll encourage it to rot away, rather than sprout suckers.

Rest assured, I wasn't quite so drastic with my hair. (Of course, there's less there to begin with.)