"And Now, Folks, for Our After-Dinner Entertainment..."

"I would really like for those two English walnut trees to be cut down soon," I announced at the dinner table this evening.  I was thinking that Dad might be able to arrange for Alex, the man who rents the gray house from Dad (and who conveniently happens to have a lawn-mowing and landscaping business), to cut down the trees sometime this fall.

"I can do that," Jeff surprised me by saying.

So he did!  :)

 Well, let me clarify: he started anyway, and got as far as he could before the chainsaw decided to quit working.

 My most pressing reason for wanting to get rid of these trees was because, a couple of nights ago, a large branch (seen above) broke off and fell--and without provocation!  It wasn't particularly windy that night, there was no storm, but that branch decided to fall anyway.  How dare it!  ;-)

 Besides that particular branch though, my list of reasons for cutting down these trees was fairly long:
1. There were a number of dead branches in them, not just the one that fell.
2. I was nervous about the kids playing under them--or even walking under them on their way up to feed the animals--because of the possibility of a branch falling just when someone was underneath (sounds bizarre, but it does happen).
3. Those trees lose their leaves really early in the fall.
4. The leaves never turn pretty colors; they just turn brown and fall off.
5. They gain their leaves really late in the spring.
6. I look at bare branches enough months of the year as it is; why do it for an extended period of time?
7. They haven't produced English walnuts (a kind of nut I truly love) in the 10 years since we've moved back here.
8. They were ugly.

I LOVE trees, but I am not at all hesitant to have them cut down when they've outlived their usefulness; then new ones can be planted, and the circle of life can continue.  :)

As soon as I heard Jeff's intentions for his after-dinner project, I abandoned my plan to clean up the kitchen right after supper and headed outside.  Watching someone with a chainsaw cut down huge limbs from a tree is highly entertaining (the suspense--WHEN will it finally fall?--and the danger, which my kids kept pointing out and I kept reassuring them about--will it land on Jeff? is this the last picture I'll ever take of him?); and since it doesn't happen every day around here, I didn't want to miss out by staying inside.

I had no idea in the world that Jeff would begin this project tonight (it's not the first time he's done something like this though) ;-), but I felt very loved that he took my request seriously and acted immediately.  Maybe tackling this project was his version of nesting before this baby is born??  ;-)