How I Spent my Sunday

You know how I said that we had no damage done to our property by the storms that moved through?  While that was true, we are house-watching for our friends/neighbors that live 2 streets away and go back to their hometown every year for the months of August and December.  They seriously have the worst luck with their trip timing.  Last December they left immediately before we were hit with Snowstorm #1 and their neighbor slammed into the car they left parked in front of their house.  This time they leave and this is what happens to their yard.

Yes, that is a tree.  Well, not a whole tree, a lot of very large branches that fell taking out a section of the side fence and landing on top of their cable line (you can see the black line to the right side of the picture).  Luckily it was not an electric line or we wouldn't have been able to do much on our own.

The winds also took out a portion of their back fence.

You can see it on the back right, that is not an intentional opening or gate.  You can also see another fallen branch.

Bill went over to borrow their saw to cut up the branch that fell into our yard and this was what he found.  (in our house-watching defense, we did go over after the storm to check the place out but didn't go into the back yard.  Just made sure there wasn't a tree on the roof or on their car or anything big like that)  Obviously we couldn't leave it like it was for them to come home to in a month so this was our Sunday afternoon activity. 

It took awhile, it was hot, and I discovered that I am not very good with saws but a few hours later the mess of the yard became this:

With a neat brush pile in the back corner and a pile of new logs for them to use in their fire pit once they return. (their log pile is hidden behind the tree to the left)  We pushed the back fence back up before we left but didn't do much to repair it, maybe we'll head back to do that this week.

Yes, that's my husband.  I didn't realize I got him half in the picture until I was uploading.

We have always been a bit jealous of their shaded backyard, now we have been cured of that.  We'll take our hot, sun filled area over tree limbs falling and taking out fencing.