Thar Be Landscapers Here!

So, I think I failed to mention that we actually did refinance our house and have hired a landscaper. I believe I failed to mention it because I was worried that something would fall through at the last minute (like, the landscaper would realize exactly how LARGE a job he had on his hands and would run screaming) and we would be stuck with a lot of money and a still-ugly yard. But the landscapers started working today and I think the experience can best be summed up with this one, simple, declarative sentence:

We broke their wood chipper.

Okay, okay, maybe we can't claim full responsibility, but it did happen on our watch and it does mean that all of the trees and other foliage they removed from our yard today are now occupying 75% of the square footage of the cul-de-sac on which we live. If our neighbors didn't love us before, they're really feeling the love now. Thankfully, the landscapers will be back tomorrow with a NEW! IMPROVED! wood chipper and the dead branches will go towards whatever dead branches go towards once they have been torn into little bitty pieces. It's sad, though, because if we had a better relationship with our neighbors, I wouldn't mind just tossing a match in and having a huge bonfire in the middle of the street. It would be like a block party. With s'mores. Lots and lots of s'mores. And hot dogs cooked on sticks. But given the relationship we DO have with our neighbors, I would be worried that once I tossed the match in, they would toss us in. And I'd hate to leave my Turtle motherless.

Hopefully, though, once the landscaping is completely finished, our neighbors will no longer have reason to assume we are running some sort of meth lab out of our home and we can resume diplomatic relations. Of course, looking at our house now that the overgrown, half-dead trees are out of the way, it has become glaringly obvious that it is in desperate need of a new coat of paint. Or four. So even when the landscaping is done, we will have some work to do before our house is not the "most likely to be home to a serial killer." And one wonders why it took us so long to hire a landscaper in the first place. You do one thing to improve the place and 15 more projects pop up, demanding attention.

Still, we are very excited that we might actually be able to use our yard in the manner in which it was intended. Turtle can't wait to run around and explore the "outside." Oscar can't wait to throw a party (you're all invited, by the way.) And I can't wait to look out over the perfectly manicured bushes from the comfort of my air-conditioned living room. What? It's almost summer here. You didn't think I would actually spend it outside, did you?