There are changes going on outside house. Back in 2001 (I’m not that old!!!), we bought our house. One of the things we loved about it was the wooded backyard. It was full of trees and felt very secluded, but with neighbors close enough to hear you scream. That was a must for me. You never know when a rogue mouse will come out to attack with their chainsaw and you must always be able to run to a neighbor so they can be killed first.
Over the years, however, everything just become overgrown. The grass became moss. Especially after I became pregnant because I didn’t want to poison the unborn Autobot in my uterus and then I was afraid she’d end up eating or bathing in the chemicals.
I bet you are so jealous of my moss.
While we still loved the enclosed privacy afforded by the trees and even the feeling of living in the woods, we started to realize, we needed to do something.
Love this.
Part of the problem is OP. She needs a safe place to play, away from the street and not on a hill that she can easily careen down to be hit by a car. She also LOVES playgrounds. Let me rephrase that. If she could run away to a place that sold playground sets, she would think her all-spark had transported her to little OP heaven.
The other problem is the bugs. The mosquitoes and gnats that love the dark, watery forest and the fact that there is this lovely little take out place that serves people only a few feet away. I don’t go out much because it gets pretty bad.
(Check out all the pictures from before…)
So after some thought, we decided to clear out the backyard a bit. This would mean cutting down trees, but we needed a clean up around the house of the dead and crooked trees that would take out our house or a neighbors.
So some trees went away out front.
You can see a few missing trees.
And quite a few disappeared out back.
So different!
It’s quite empty.
My house looks naked.
It still retains some of the trees and we’re going to have bushes put up at the back for privacy.
I’m not sure of the change yet. Of course we have a lot more to go–the bushes, grass, patio, plantings, etc. I’m saddened by the change because we destroyed some homes for animals and yes, I am just that sappy. I’m also very excited by all this because we’re going to have so much more space for OP to play and even us. The backyard is HUGE! I never really imagined it to be this big before because it was just space I think I had been in about 10 times before.
Once it’s done, we’re going to have a big BBQ to celebrate the space. If we’re lucky maybe we’ll have a few thousand less bugs from the millions we seem to have now. Otherwise, they will be having a BBQ themselves.
