Step 3: A jungle no more!

Before...

After...

8/24/09: Demoliton started today when Garrett Jones of Cornerstone Concrete Development brought in the bobcat and literally ripped the jungle out!

Poor Jonathan (Garrett's helper) got stung when Garrett hit 2 separate yellow jacket nests - they were not happy insects after being unhomed and doused with both a can of wasp spray and a gallon of citronella tiki fuel (we were desperate!)

THE ENEMY!

Another day...a few more trees

Okay so mother nature had plans other than us starting on the demolition this past week...it rained all week and all I could do was look out at my jungle...it finally hit me...Jeff was right! We really should have taken out those two pines (I hate it when I'm wrong!) Oh well...time to bite the bullet! I called Rich again on Friday and he was out by Sunday morning to help not only take down the two enormous pines and one small one but also to help cut them all up and prune an oak...he is awesome! I wish I could add all the videos but mot are too big...here's a sample of the cool stuff Rich does for us.

Pruning the oak tree...

A little clean up...

There was a mountain of trees & brush to be cleaned up...

Jeff had some serious tool envy when he saw how quick Rick could cut through the debris!

Rich playing in the oak tree

Hahaha - love this shot!!!

Not a bad day's wok out of me 11 days after knee surgery!

The Jungle

We have been talking about doing something in the backyard for years so we let the landscape go figuring it was a waste of time to do anything pretty that would get ripped out later. So here we are 9 years after moving in and we have a virtual jungle below the deck... It's hard to tell what is what right now unless you are familiar with the area but as progress moves forward you will be able to look back and understand these pre-work pictures.

Step 2 - digging in!

8/19: This morning we had Alan Ellenburg from A.C.E. Professional Stump Grinding come out to grind down the stumps. I took some videos while he was doing it - what a cool toy he has!!! It took less than 30 minutes to completely grind down 4 stumps...gotta make sure Jeff and I are never near one of those machines at the same time LOL! Tomorrow Garrett comes out to start the demolition!

I wanted to add the second video where the stump is finally finished off but it's too big. :-(

Step 1 - Let the games begin!

8/9/09: So we finally decided on a contractor for the project(s)... We are using Mike Walker of Stonecrest Homes & Renovations. Step one was today - Jeff took out several trees himself and we had Richard Hoffman Tree Service take out two larger ones that were close to the house. So excited to get moving on this, we've been talking about the plans for years now!