large tree down

Wow, I skipped blogging the entire month of November! Things continue to roll along here at the homestead. We had that huge tree in the back taken down, and stacked all the wood and shredded up the twigs. Because of the threat of the Emerald Ash Borer the local municipality no longer hands out wood mulch for free. And the tree people we used didn't own their own shredder. So we rented one. I'd have to say, don't bother. It cost money to rent the chipper/shredder, it took ALL DAY to shred up a tree's worth of twigs and the mulch isn't that good. It's "sticky." Lots of big sticks. On the plus side the mulch pile takes up far less room than the twig pile did, but it just wasn't worth the amount of time/effort/expense we put into obtaining that small pile of low quality mulch. What we do have, as result of taking down the tree, it a whole lot more sunshine in the back yard and a very large stack of fire wood. I had a gardening friend come over and we decided where the different plantings are going to go.