Because there ain’t no thing like a chicken wing. Ours just happened to be a tree shaped like a chicken wing that was mauled when our silver maple bit the dust. And unfortunately, we are still cleaning up after said treetastrophe. Mostly so our neighbor doesn’t try to break up with us. That would be awkward. So Dain took matters (and a chainsaw) into his own hands and finally took out our neighbor’s tree turned chicken wing.
Here’s what our neighbor’s decapitated tree looked like after our big tree assaulted it.
We told our neighbor that we would take care of her tree, but admittedly, life got in the way of our good intentions and it took a little longer than expected. So she went at it herself. With a step stool and a pair clippers. Luckily, Dain intercepted her at the point where she was planning on getting her ladder out and assured her he would do it soon. However, her handiwork created the chicken wing.
It was funny to look at for a few weeks, but Dain demolished it in about 3 minutes. Thanks to a free chainsaw. Because when somebody asks you if you could use a chainsaw because they have an extra, the answer is always yes. Thanks dad. It was in mint condition. And it turned the chicken wing into this.
After the wing was gone, Dain worked with our neighbor Helen to figure out how to beautify the space. They decided to extend and expand the edging to create a nice bed for plants after the tree is replaced. To help them visualize, he used a garden hose to lay out where the edging would be dug in.
Then he dug a trench the depth of the edging, throwing the excess dirt into the new planting area. Luckily, they were able to use existing edging and spare pieces we each had in our garages.
The edging went in very easily, and Dain back-filled with the dirt that was dug out.
After our neighbor’s edging was in, Dain started on our side by again using the hose to layout the new path for the edging.
And then he repeated the steps again by digging the trench, adding the edging, and filling it in.
Once all of the edging was in, Dain raked the area smooth in anticipation for plants and wood chips.
It’s already a huge improvement from what was there before. The next step is to cut down the larger cedar tree this weekend, which is a two man job since it stands about 40 feet tall. Then we are hoping to score some clearance trees to replace the two old ones. All that will be left is to transplant hostas to the new area and fill everything in with wood chips. The fun basically never ends around here.
