The Clean Up

With the end of the rain late this week, it was time to get outside and begin the clean up process.


On Thursday we cleaned up the driveway.  There is still a pile of old snow from where Tom shoveled us out a week ago.  I raked up all of the debris and Tom ran it through the composter shredder.

 There is still on patch of debris encrusted with ice and a pile of "logs".

 Friday morning we were able to squeeze in about two and a half hours of work in the back yard.


As you can see, the sky is blue, but it's just barely above freezing.  I'm not sure how we're going to get that 'widow maker' - that hanging limb, out of the fir tree.

 Ice storms are very hard on Madrona trees because they are broad leaf evergreens, with brittle limbs.  We lost the whole tops out of two smaller trees, and a bunch of limbs out of a large tree.  We had to fetch some out of the neighbors yard.  This pile awaits the chain saw, the lopping shears, and the shredder.

 I got the lawn raked

 and most of the beds cleaned up.

 We have a huge mound of limbs to deal with, some very large.

 Under this large fir is a mass of debris, layered with ice.  When branches covered with ice snap, the ice rips all of the foliage off as it falls, leaving piles of small branches.

 We got everything else picked up and added to the pile, and I got a start on this mess before we ran out of time.

 Josy preferred to admire the sunny day from inside.  She goes outside on her own, but I guess she doesn't trust me since I scooped her up and hauled her outside a couple of times.  As soon as she was free she dashed back in through her cat door.


Today, Saturday, we got kind of a slow start, but were outside working by 10:30.  We took an hour lunch break and then worked until almost 5:00.


Tom began shredding the debris pile.

 I tackled the mess under the tall fir tree.  Lots of large limbs, ice and snow had come down, crushing shrubs.  We were planning to do some pruning on this acuba this year, but not quite this drastically.

 As I filled bins and hauled them to the pile, Tom kept up with me so that at least the pile didn't grow.  The shredded material was used as mulch under the hedge, and then as dressing for the garden path.

 I picked up all I could, getting down to the ice layer.  The rest will have to wait for the thaw.  Tom managed to reduce the size of the pile a bit more before we called it a day and drug our weary bodies into the house.

 There we found Josy quite comfortable, thank you.

FYI:  Son Jake has been teasing me about not including photos of the cat, his cat, in my blogs.  So from now on, you may see her quite often.