"My Dad is the Best Dad": a Non-Gizmo, Chainsaw-Happy Post

With Pa Poke in the Northland, Mitch and I had made a "To-Do Wish List" to keep him busy in between snuggles with Gizmo.  He tackled our yard and landscaping, which had been neglected for years and needed some major cleaning-up and trimming.  Here is the fruits of our (OK, his) labor over the last two days.

The first task was to trim the trees in the front yard.  We have two beautiful maple trees and a not-so-pretty ash tree, and Pa was quick to climb up and start cutting.

I won't lie when I say I feared for his safety, and must have said a thousand times, "Are you OK?"  

Here you can see the two maple trees, and how much CRAP we cut off of them.  Two truckloads to the compost site later, and it was done.

Here's a before of the ash tree in the front yard:

-and an after picture.

It looks like a completely new yard.

The next task this morning was to tear out some ugly-ass bushes, as Mitch and I affectionately call them.  This picture is from when we bought the house a year ago (you can see all the extra limbs on the maple tree, too).

Here is the picture today right before they were ripped out - (again, notice how GREAT the maple tree looks!)

And after some chainsaw work and pulling of the roots, here is the finished product:

And in case you wanted to see the demo in action, here it is:

This trimming and removing of landscaping has completely transformed the look of our front yard and house, as it has opened it up and made it look about 20 years fresher.  We've lost some privacy, of course, but need to make a clean slate of sorts before we can start to rebuild the deck and shape the landscape into the way we want it.  

Thanks, Pa Poke!  There is no way we could have done it (both physically and as cheaply!) without you.