. . . 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? . . .