The Tree Guys

Dropped the twins off at school then drove with Buddy to Greenwood to meet Matt and the tree guys!

Matt introduced me to three young guys and he said their names were Bob, Robert and Bobby but I'm pretty sure he was pulling my leg. He walked them around the property and I hung out with Buddy. He seemed pretty peppy today for his 11 years, and really wanted to go in the house so I took him in on a leash. Not sure what he might find so we're not letting him wander yet. Interestingly enough, he really really wanted to go into the basement. I always joke that there's a dead body down there, but after watching him whine and scratch at the basement door for awhile it kind of gave me the willies so I took him back outside.

Gramma and Grampa K (Matt's parents) drove up and watched the big truck for awhile before they took Buddy back to their house for some quality time. It's really not easy to get things done with the dog there because it's so stinky I just think he's overwhelmed and can't settle down into his normal state which is basically "sleeping". They are happy to help and we really appreciate it.

It was really fun to watch these guys work, and they made a huge difference on the outside of the house. Basically the house is going to get a lot more sun now, the roof will be accessible for the roofers tomorrow, and there will be less debris coming down on the roof. There is tons of moss growing on the current roof, and that's partly due to the inability of the roof to dry off because of the shade of the trees.

Here are two pretty good "before the tree guys came"shots from the corner and from the road:

And here are similar "after the tree guys came" shots:

Here are some more random shots of the trees being trimmed:

While the tree guys and Matt worked outside, I decided to tackle our main floor bedroom. This is a room I'd really like to sanitize as much as possible as soon as possible. A cat lived there. I don't mind cats but today I'm rather against them. First I pulled up the carpet in the closet. This is the carpet that was in the whole room, but had been removed before we bought the house. I can't even imagine what this room smelled like. Anyway, it was gross. You can see how thick the cat hair covered it, and yes that's what you think it is:

Sorry to gross everybody out, but it's just that I believe this place is going to look SO GREAT and it will make me feel good if you know how bad it was to start.

I vacuumed all around the edges of the room where the tack strips had held the carpet down, and were now doing a great job holding all of the cat hair in clumps. Since Matt wasn't around to stop me, I decided to try to remove them myself with his chisel and hammer:

The first section came off so easily that I got really cocky but then the rest of the room was 4,000 times harder to make up for it. A lot of the wood would splinter when I tried to pry it up. Eventually I got into a little rhythm and would hammer the chisel in every few inches and then pry the whole thing up at once.

Doing this little job in the master bedroom really helped me to see what a huge undertaking this is. Every time I finished a section I'd walk over to the vac to clean up the cat hair/splinters and it took me until I was half-way across the room just to become upright. I felt like I was acting out one of those "evolution of man" posters, just trying to un-crick my back as I walked to the vacuum. Phew! And then when I finished the room, I stood back to look at my handiwork, and I couldn't even tell anything different. I could look at the pile of tack strips and know that I did it, but it's not like what the tree guys do. I completely forgot to get an "after" photo but honestly the before and after would look pretty much the same. Oh well.

But since you kept reading all the way to here, I have a reward for you. Yes, it is the video of the leaning tower of Treesa becoming upright!  Have a great day!