A Pile of Logs

We had five or six poplar trees that were on the verge of causing a disaster. Two were clearly dead with no foliage, the others growing bigger and more brittle by the day. My dad, my neighbor and nearly everyone else I spoke with about the trees offered to help me drop them myself. I was a little too nervous to try it since there was all the possibility that any of those trees could hit our house, take out a section of fence, hit a neighbor's house, or - worst of all - smash one of two pools in the vicinity.

So, we hired Aurora Tree Service to send up a climber and hack the tops off and then bring the trees the rest of the way down. Yesterday, my folks gave up half their Saturday to help us reel in the mess. It was a lot of work and it's still not completely finished. (Don't tell my aching limbs.) We stacked up the big logs and shredded one of the large, large stacks of branches. I have one stack left to shred and then it's time to start splitting logs. (Again, my arms are already staging a coup.)

Since we no longer have the looming threat of death by bludgeoning, we're thinking about adding a load of dirt to the project pile and finishing off some edging with brick. We need more time in the week...