Another Day, Another Trimming

When one moves to different areas of the country, you learn all sorts of different things about the amazingly different flora and fauna the Lord has put on the earth. Here in Arizona, plants are predominantly spiky to different degrees. Not all, but most of the things in our yard. Also, the plants LOVE the heat. No joke, they do not grow much or at all during the "cooler" season. No, they love to grow like crazy when it is a blazing 110 degrees outside. Growing up in the Northeast, California, even the living in the Pacific Northwest you only trimmed trees if a branch was annoying, or was growing into important phone lines.

When we moved here we experienced something entirely new. We have a Mesquite tree in our front yard. We moved in at the end of March with the tree looking nice. I kept wondering as time went by if the tree was really that full when we moved in. By the end of May, I was getting a little flustered about what might be wrong with our tree. Then the branches were touching my car. Finally, a big branch was resting on my car (it is a soft wood) from the weight of all the new growth on it. As I backed out (amazingly without any scratches) it continued its decent to the ground. Of course, now professionals had to come out and take care of it. Still, it took us a few more months to realize, we would need to thin out the tree at least 4 times a year between April and November. Luckily, we already had a sawzall and just needed to get a long tree pruner.

Once, I trimmed it by myself. That is not a smart idea, being on a ladder by yourself with a sawzall. Mesquite trees are a very soft wood. So when I would cut off a large chunk, what I thought was a good clearance of tree to ladder would swiftly disappear as the tree limb would rise. It happened often enough (yeah, I am a little slow, it should have only taken once) for me to realize, Mike should be around for the next time. The tree was trimmed without incident, but I am not sure it wasn't without attentive angels (shaking their heads at me), as maybe my time wasn't up yet.

This last Saturday was another yard cleanup day. The last one we did all the bushes that had grown past the point of acceptable and it was finally cooler which was more acceptable to me. It is once again bulk trash pick-up this week, so we needed to trim all the palms and our two trees. The kids were really cute and helped us haul the non-spiky tree limbs to the front curb. As long as it is not horrendously hot, I actually don't mind it. We are getting faster as it only took us 2 hours for all of it this time. Katie is a real sweet heart and helped sweep the driveway and brought us tall glasses of water without being asked. I was really touched. Katie and Christian have both learned to stay clear of the trimmings as the type of Mesquite we have has small to two inch spikes on its limbs. (Another wonderful aspect of that particular tree.) Here is a picture of the kids in front of the trimmings (that pile is over their head). It brings us great joy that trimming is done, and we are hoping it doesn't grow a whole lot over the Arizona winter.

Later the kids were ready to go outside and have a water fight. Here is a cute picture of the kids together, soaked. Mike had just cleaned the glass doors that morning, of course.














They later went to the park with Mike, by scooter and by bike. So a little work and a little play, made it one great happy day!