Even MORE Free Firewood

I had noticed that the neighbor across the back fence has been neglecting his trees.  Normally I wouldn't care, but it had started to affect our yard.  Yes, the crab apples falling every year are a big pain - I probably put close to 3 gallons of them in the compost bin so far this year - but now vines have been spreading through the branches and into our bushes.  I had been looking for this neighbor to be outside for a while now so I could discuss his trees with him, but I could not wait any longer and had to hack away.  And hack away I did.  If it crossed the fence I was looking to cut it down.

In the southeast corner, left, there is a small tree across the fence and behind the neighbor's garage that has been growing wildly, and vines have been reaching out and getting into our lilacs.  I trimmed that rather easily but did not go over the fence line.  Our lilac is close so I will have to keep an eye on it.  There's a couple feet now between them so hopefully no vines shall cross but I know they will try.

The southwest corner above the compost bin was a different story.  I've watched that crab apple tree grow up into the phone lines and now get covered in vines.  The vines are actually killing the half of the tree on his side yet nothing has been done to stop it.  Compounding the issue is another behind-the-owner's-garage tree that is growing out of control kitty corner behind the compost bin.  Between them they created a vine highway into our burning bush that I have been trying to get back into shape since being allowed to overgrow before we bought the house and since it almost completely died in the drought of 2012.  I must have pulled a couple hundred feet of vines down and you can still see them hanging from the trees.  As a nice side effect, the area is much more open back there, no longer under an unwanted canopy.

So after about a gallon of sweat on this hot and humid day what is left is a big pile of neatly stacked branches out front and even more free firewood for me.  In the picture the two on the right are from my neighbor's branches that fell a week or two ago, the rest are from today.  Not a lot of big stuff but the smaller stuff burns, too.  Probably at least 40 bucks of wood there if you bought it at a store, chopped and cut.  Oh, and many thanks to neighbor Dave who let me borrow his pole saw today.

I also finished painting the last bit of the foundation this morning.  We had been working on it on and off all Summer now, around the weekends and the weather.  The new paint is only in the lower right of this picture, for a before and after.  The missing paint came off when I power washed it.  Now, black as Swedish Death Metal, it matches the garage trim and window trim much better.

Boy, it feels good to finally get a couple of big things crossed off my lengthy to-do list.  This next week may as well be called 'Project Week' for me.  I have lots planned on my last full week off of the year.  I'm sure I'll be posting about much of it here.