Tree Killers

Today Jake and I spent the morning in the jungle of our backyard, attempting to reclaim some of the ground that we had previously (like two years ago) given up to the powers of re-forestation. Here are some shots of what we were dealing with:

Here's Carter, enjoying the ability to hide amongst the vegetation.



He stalked the next door neighbors cat, and the two of them chased each other for a while. Both of them (at different times) actually got caught in the overgrowth of various vines and weeds. Although I know Carter will miss this haunt, we really are making it safer for humans and (some) animals.



To begin the project, Jake stopped off at our favorite local hardware store to pick up paper yard waste bags, and of course, folding Adirondack chairs. Here's all the stuff strapped onto the Extra-Cycle. [By the way, that's not Lucy, just her helmet -- he dropped her off at school first, then did the hardware store run.]









Here is a sample of one of the (MANY!) trees we uprooted:

It was actually pretty satisfying to pull these up. Some of these trees were taller than me [insert hilarious joke about Bridget's height here. Wait for snort of laughter. Continue reading]. We harbor no ill-will for the trees, but these were ones that had sprouted randomly from seeds dropped from the trees behind us, and a couple of them are from invasive species, so we did the right thing.



Here is the before:

And here is after:





What amazes me is how much better is looks now, and yet, how awful it still looks! We still have a lot of work ahead of us, but at least we've made a bit of headway. Here's that bottom right corner of the yard after (the very first picture at the top of this post is a before shot of roughly the same area):

And now, what you've all really been waiting for, some photos of the awesome new retaining wall, all complete & fabulous: