Guys with the bulldozer from the Service Department Center

I know...but I didn't think to ask their names until they were gone!

I have designated this as my summer of the great outdoors.  Not as in camping.  If you thought that, then you obviously don't know me at all because I'm as likely to camp as I am to set myself on fire. Which I have been known to do while cooking....but only accidentally.  Any-hoo......

My yard is a big hot mess.  It was only a hot mess last summer when I moved into my house, but I was too preoccupied with the inside issues to deal with the outside.  Now that the inside is beautiful (if you ignore the tumbleweed sized fur balls blowing across the hardwood) I am tackling the outside.  I started by taking a chainsaw to the bushes out front.  Nothing screams "I am woman, hear me roar" like gunning your chainsaw.  It also startles the neighbors.  Quite a bit.  Until they see you with a level building a retaining wall the right way.  Then they know you are legit and relax a little.  Especially when you don't leave dead landscaping carcasses all over the place.

I am lucky enough that I live in a little city that will come get your yard-waste for if you just drag it out to the curb.  The last place I lived had all these rules about cutting it down and binding, only putting it out on certain days between certain hours....it was actually very stressful in a lame suburban kind of way.  I spent more time wrapping my dead branches than I did wrapping Christmas presents.  That is just wrong.  It was nice to call and have a batch picked up with no fuss.

In the midst of my landscaping renovation project, Mom came over and took the pruning shears to a bush in the back.  I started out with a big bush and a little pile of brush.  By the time she was finished, I had a little bush and big pile of brush.  It was very Gene Zion.  I meant to call the city to set up another brush pick up time, but my birthday happened and I just forgot.  Today, I was outside planting my birthday presents when I noticed big yellow trucks.  It was the service department doing their brush pick up.  I flagged down one of the guys and he was nice enough to let me grab my big pile for immediate pick up instead of making me call and wait another week.  Bonus:  they had a bulldozer.  What boy, autism or not, doesn't love to watch that?!?!?!?  The birdman from several posts ago came out with his little boys.  He pretended it was for them, but we all know...big boys love bulldozers as much as little boys.

Thank you service department workers for letting me grab my brush for an impromptu pick up as well as providing entertainment for Sam.  I apologize for not thinking to get your names so I could thank you specifically!