20 March 2009

. . . cutting back . . .

. . . it's no secret . . .
. . . these are tough economic times . . .
. . . good grief! . . .
. . . even my bashas' closed this week . . .
{sniff/tears}
. . . like folks everywhere, we're cutting back . . .
. . . pruning, even . . .
. . . our shamel ash tree 
has appeared in previous posts . . .
. . . but this mutant specimen 
has gotten so big, 
it's scaring us . . .
. . . take for instance, 
that huge branch 
overhanging the corner of my bedroom . . .
. . . fyi ~ i blog right by that window! . . .
. . . so i did the only sensible thing . . .
. . . called bernabe . . .
{like barnaby ~ only spanish}
. . . he gave me a quote for extensive trimming . . .
. . . "too much," said i . . .
. . . he came down in price a hundred bucks . . .
. . . i said, "how about for that new lower price . . .
. . . you take out this orange tree, too?" . . .
{the fruit has never been good}
. . . "and, by the way, 
do you know anyone 
who would want 
this huge satellite dish?" . . .
{which i forgot to snap a photo of ~ 
we've had it since 
the days before there were 900 cable channels 
& it was necessary to view every byu/suns game}
{but it looked sort of like this}
. . . he said, "si, in mexico, but is too far to drive" . . .
. . . then he said for the original quote price, he'd 
•prune the monstrous ash tree
•take out the orange tree
•disassemble/remove the satellite dish
•dig out the post & concrete
•trim the flowering pear tree in our front yard
•clean up, and
•haul it all away
. . . "sold!" said i . . .
. . . this poor neglected tree 
had become so overgrown . . .
. . . branches were dying . . .
{can we talk about 
the [seriously] billions of seed pods it drops? 
it's a female}
. . . bernabe was ruthless . . .
. . . big branches started coming down . . . 
. . . brushing against the hedge 
on the other side 
of our back fence . . .
. . . disturbing a large bee colony/hive . . .
. . . hence ~ bernabe's helper 
trying to keep them at bay with two hoses 
while saying "cheese" . . .
{go ahead ~ click to enlarge}
. . . this was a three & a half day project . . .
. . . requiring about nine truckloads 
to haul it all away . . .
. . . now all that's left is a little tidying up . . .
. . . actually, i'd love to 
bury our trampoline over here . . .
{someday ~ but we're cutting back right now!}
. . . yes, it'll take a while 
for this beautiful tree 
to fluff out again . . . 
. . . cutting back isn't always pretty . . .
. . . but, right now, it's necessary . . .
. . . what're you doing to cut back? . . .


4 comments:

angiedunn said...

wow...that is a satisfying tree-taking-down job. go bernabe.

sorry about bashas. it shall be missed. best produce for salsa in 85204, i reckon.

K Bailey said...

Schwan's man...who has food that is so handy and easy...housecleaner every once in awhile (but that only lasted about six weeks before I had to call her up again!)-still working on that bad habit...less sit-down restaurants for dinner...refi with lower interest rate...we haven't seen a whole lot of the recession here in OK yet (I couldn't find a parking spot last week at the mall)!

Sassy said...

What a nice job Barnabe did...we need our's trimmed too...our little granddaughter went to jump out of our's the other day like they always do by grabbing a branch and the dang thing snapped off with her and she hit the ground...so I think we need to do some serious trimming soon...just no $$$$$ right now....with my hubby barely working and my three little jobs are hardly cutting it...so we have majorly cut back EVERYTHING! Not fun...I tell ya!

chris+amber said...

SAD...your Basha's is gone?! Your backyard definitely got an extreme make-over. Way to be an expert negotiator. We're cutting back on quite a bit, but it'll be worth it when Chris is finished with school! I need to remind myself of that often.