Mulch Pile

A few weeks ago we had a couple more trees taken down. When we first moved into our house 15 years ago the trees were just saplings and it's hard to believe how big they've gotten. We used to have 4 Bradford Pear trees lining the front of our yard. It was kind of the signature of our house. People knew the house with all the trees lining the street. A couple years ago, we had 2 of the trees cut down because they were about to split and another cut down recently. There's still 1 left. It seems to be a slightly different variety - the canopy is much narrower and doesn't seem to be prone to splitting like the trees with the broader canopy. We also cut down a couple of pear trees in the back yard last year. This year, along with the pear tree we also cut down our River Birch. It's a nice looking tree, but it sheds so much debris. I told Helen that I was tired of picking up after the tree and, besides, it was in the way if we were going to do a new scalloped walkway. Now our yard looks pretty barren without all the trees, but things will look better when we get the new walkway and landscaping done.

One of the benefits of cutting down the trees is all the leftover mulch created. We had the tree company dump the mulch in our backyard near the tire swing. The mulch pile became a magnet for all the kids on the street. The kids would come over first thing after school to play on the pile. On the day that I finally got all the mulch spread out, the kids came running home from the bus with their friends only to be disappointed when they realized their beloved mulch pile was no more.