The relaxing weekend that wasn’t

We were looking forward to our upcoming weekend because we had no plans, nothing scheduled, and no one to see. All we wanted to do was RELAX. Well, last week my neighbour and I had booked a tree arborist to come trim a couple of trees that are on the border of our properties. He was scheduled to come on Monday the 19th. So, while on my usual Friday breakfast date with my friend (who is also my neighbour two doors down the road), I get a text at 8:20 that says “doing your trees this morning at 9”. Now, this is very typical ‘kiwi fashion’- always unscheduled and never on time. Never mind all the things I had planned for the day, I needed to get to the bank for some cash and home to get the chickens out of the area.

The girls loved their new set up because I put them in my other neighbour’s yard, which happens to have a lawn.



Since we are just coming out of Winter and the leaves haven’t grown back on our Liquidambar trees, we thought it would be a good (and hopefully cheap) time to have them trimmed. Here is a before and after picture.




Last time we had one of these trees cut, we had him leave the branches because 1) it knocked $150 off the price, and 2) We had planned to chop them up to use as firewood. So here is the damage.

Our side



Neighbour’s side



Our neighbours only wanted 3 big branches cut off but the arborist put the majority of the branches on their side. So once they left, I got to work until Holming got home. Cut, snap, and stack…

It took 10 hours over Friday and Saturday but we got through it. We now have enough firewood to last next Winter. And, we won’t have to rake up all those leaves this Autumn.

I was very surprised to see that Holming still had enough energy to complete the extension of my raised garden bed.



I stained it the wrong colour as you can see, so I’ll be painting it in the next couple of weeks. Oh joy… all I want to do is play IN the garden but all these other projects keep getting in the way.

Very happy for the stormy Sunday so we can get back to our relaxing weekend.