a pictoral tale of two trees...and two more trees...

Consider yourself warned. This post is kind of sad. But it ends with new life, so that's good. But it's still sad.

We had two huge spruce trees in our backyard. They were big. Gorgeous. Lush. Really, really lovely old trees. We loved them. The squirrels loved them. The birds, too.

But they were huge. And our yard is small. And they covered the backyard in needles all the time, such that sitting down in the yard would give a painful poking. And sappy pine cones were forever falling down...actually, it'd be more accurate to say that sappy pine cones were forever being thrown at us by a duo of nasty, albeit adorable, red squirrels. And they'd drip sap, too. (The trees, that is, not the red squirrels. Although, if red squirrels knew just how annoying dripping sap is, they might figure out how to do it.)

Sap is sticky. Sap is avoidable (mostly) by adults, but sap and toddlers? That's another story. Needles and pokes, sap and sticky hands...getting the picture?

So here they are on the morning of their demise. Aren't they lovely?

Nedy was pretty alarmed at first by the attack on her trees.
But my little photo journalist quickly went to work.
This is the point at which we realized that our neighbors actually had roofs...and that they were close to us. :)
6 hours into the day, the trees were down. 80 years to grow and 6 hours to come down.
Their ashes. :(
(God, I am so dramatic. I'm actually a little teary here writing this.)

(Just a thought, but I wouldn't mess with this stump grinder dude. I just wouldn't.)
Nedy and Baba visited the garden center for weeks researching trees and decided on a Katsura and an Eastern Redbud. Notice the root balls in comparison to Ned's body. (Needless to say, we paid for our first garden center delivery.)
Nedy's really a very skilled supervisor. :)

It took help from 3 neighbors to get these "baby trees" into the ground.

And now they're leafing out and growing beautifully already. The yard, however, remains a construction site. We've got our summer work cut out for us. Fortunately, Ned loves nothing more than an afternoon spent with her wheelbarrow, shovel and a pile of dirt. ("Mama, YOOK! Worm crawl out dirt pile!")