the first cut is the deepest...

We had some major de-forestation done at our house today.

Guess what? I took pictures!

Here's Emma watching the huge limb come down, rather closely to where she is sitting.

And Evan, plugging his ears, just like he did when he was little.

This is Tommy Tree. I doubt his last name is actually Tree. That's the name of his business. He lives down the street from us. We pretend we know each other and give a little wave, and he gives us good deals on tree services. He also looks really good without a shirt on.

This is a smoke bush that grows on the side of our house. It is pretty even thought it makes huge smoky tumbleweeds all over the place.

Here's the smoke bush after, with only one limb remaining. I wanted to ax the entire thing but I was outvoted. Nw you can actually walk to the front yard without being attacked by branches.

Ahh, the back 40. Used to be a massive jungle, and the remaining trees are plotting to take over. Yes they are.

Such a difference! We took out the middle spruce (who was really the instigator) and now we can see into the neighbors' yard. That's his spruce peeking thru.

Now on to the good stuff, the front yard. This is the view on my front porch. We have massively overgrown maple tree #1, and an arrowroot bush that has been killed twice and come back to life. Nothing short of an exorcism will do.

Good ol' Tom shimmied up the tree and with a few well placed hacks of his chainsaw, we can now see all the way to downtown Northville! Well, almost, anyway.

Say goodbye to my little friend.

She is gone, hopefully to never return. Now if only they would have dug up all the rocks!

If you look closely, you can see Em & Ev sitting on the dirt pile watching the action. This was well after the branches were down and it was safe to venture from the garage. My favorite part about this tree trimming adventure was Emma following Tommy around with a checklist her dad had made, making sure Tommy was doing everything on it. She gives direction well, for a 10 year old. He thought she was adorable.

We are now letting in approximately 275% more sunlight into the house than we were before. Shit! I need to wash the windows!

Have a great weekend :)