Friday, June 26, 2009

Still Alive

I haven't posted in a while so I thought I would let everyone know I am still alive. My summer has been busy so far. It's surprising how much time and attention one tree falling in the front yard can occupy. I spent the first week of summer break attending continuing education seminars and hauling off tree limbs. We called the city to estimate how much they would charge to haul away the debris and they wanted about $200. Since I have a broken down old pickup and a little time off, I decided to do it myself. Turns out when I started digging through the pile that the guys we hired to cut it up also left another tree on the curb along with ours. This is the wimpiest of the 8 loads I hauled away to the brush recycling center



and this is the pile of chunks that are bigger than the recycling center will accept (nothing over 6" in diameter). They will remain in our driveway unil it is our turn for brush and large item pick up again (sometime in Sept - Nov). The fine is something like $2000 a day if you leave stuff on the curb when it is not your turn.




The big chunks from the live oak tree that they left along with ours were hauled away by Carolyn's (Suzanne's boss) husband for firewood.


No one wants our tree for firewood because chineese pistache is a relative of poison ivy, poison oak and poison sumac and the smoke and fumes from burning it are irritating to those sensitive to the poisonous plants.






4 comments:

Austin's Mommy said...

Glad you're still alive, Dad. How about a post from your trip to NY? So, it's okay to leave the tree in the driveway but not on the curb, huh? Makes no sense. Is your grass dead under the tree pile? I guess with the drought and unbearably high temps everything is probably looking pretty brown by now. Sounds like a lot of work.

Barbara said...

Good to hear from you, Rich. I agree with Julianne, we need a post from your trip to NY, even though Jenny posted while you were there. You've probably heard that I suffered a fall on my trip to Mass/NY with Carol Ann's family. I'm still recuperating--probably for another two weeks. Nothing was broken, and I can walk, but my leg was black and blue from toes to upper thigh, and greatly swollen. The swelling has gone down considerably, but the initial bump is still there and slowly healing. The weird things was I iced it too long and too directly after I did it, and I ended up with some really huge, purple blisters from "ice burn."

Grammyzanne said...

What grass? Oh you must mean the weeds. Unfortunately the weeds survived rather well. But it has been so hot and water so limited (I'd rather water flowering plants than weeds) they are now suffering.

Lynda/Mom said...

I can't believe those jerks dumped stuff in your yard!! Did you call them to complain, or were they not a group you could track down? That takes real nerve. I didn't know you were in a drought--I guess we are getting all your rain. It is so green and humid in Northern Utah there are plagues of crickets and mosquitos, but it is beautiful this year. Nice to hear from you again.