Grinding Up Trees

Joe and his assistant of Little Joe's Tree Service arrived about 8:15 this morning. 

 Then it took about another 15 minutes to get the equipment backed down our driveway.  those of you with experience with our driveway can relate. 

And then, in no time, those nasty junipers were gone. 

 They were the not-fun part of the job. 

 I came out periodically to check on progress.  I had to get to the grocery store for some ingredients I forgot to pick up for the soup base I was making.  I had to walk through the neighbors yard to get out.  Fortunately Tom parked the car out on the street before the crew arrived. 

Look. Topless trees. 

 This kid worked hard. 

 When all of the cutting and grinding were done, Tom had them dump the chips back where they came from.

 They were done and away by 10:15. 

 And they left us the logs to cut up for firewood. 

 It looks bare now, but with all of the shrubs we have planted we really only need to fill a few spaces to be shielded from view from the neighbors. 

 We will put some sort of a simple fence back up, just to keep dogs out and let any future kids that might live around here know where the boundaries are. 

We got the logs cut up and Tom got a start on spreading that pile of mulch before lunch.

 Then in the afternoon we took off and went plant shopping. We went to Vassey Nursery and Watson's, both near Puyallup. It's time for sales at the nurseries and we wanted some evergreen shrubs that can take shade to plug some of the holes where the hedge is no longer screening. We found a winter blooming Mahonia and an "Emerald Colonade" Holly, a non-stickery kind of holly. We'll see how they do, and maybe look for a few more ideas.

 And with 30 to 40% off, I went a little crazy buying fillers for my winter patio pots: heucheras, euphorbia, grasses, a little nandina, and a cute little shrub with variegated leaves and fragrant fall flowers that we will be planting near the front steps instead of an overgrown variegated box which has reverted back to plain green.  Unfortunately we did not get a tag on it so we don't know what it is. :-/

So in having one job done for us, we have made even more work for ourselves.  But it will be fun now that the hard part is out of the way. 

And there was wonderful homemade pozole for dinner!