Tree Trimming!

You can see just by looking at the top picture of this blog how out of control our trees were. The house is flanked by two HUGE oak trees and they were in desperate need of a trim. The one on the right was completely surrounded by underbrush and had one huge branch that hung out over the driveway. The one on the left was even worse. It is bigger, bushier and had a wisteria that had grown up all the way into the top branches. It was causing major damage to the roof and was so dense that it created a wall of growth and you couldn't even tell if anyone was parked in the driveway!

There were two ads in the Seminole paper for tree trimmers. We called both and had them come out to make estimates. This was pretty comical. Something about rural tree trimmers...all it takes is a brave soul with a truck, you know?

The price was similar so we had to choose between Crew #1 led by a tattoo covered kid with a mo-hawk in a beaten up truck or Crew #2 led by a one-eyed man in overalls driving a mini-van. 

They arrived with a double-man bucket truck which was so cool to see...esp. for the boys! They started right away and were done in just a day! The improvements were so great. Well, for one thing, YOU COULD SEE THE HOUSE!

The guys working on the east oak:

The bucket truck:

The west tree before:

(See the screen? There is a car parked behind there and you can't even tell!
And the after:

Whoa. They took away SO MANY branches. And they took out that pesty wisteria. A part of me was sad to see it go, but it was poorly placed and we just need to start fresh.

I didn't get a good before of the east tree...but here is one taken back in January:

Here's the east tree after:

 They did a great job trimming it up and then Brad was able to clear out from under it. No more prickly hedges in front and the greatest difference is seen from inside. Those branches completely covered those two bedroom windows and it made the rooms really dark. Now, it looks completely different with sunlight reaching it!