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Thursday, 1 September 2011

We're Not In Kansas Anymore

This is the sad tale of the tornado and the dastardly tree removal guy.

First there was this ~


Then the tornado paid me a visit and I had this ~



That is me on the roof.  I'm saying, "Holy cow a tree fell on my house!"  Or, something to that effect.  My relatives and neighbours are standing around saying, "Right, you have a tree on your house." Or something to that effect.  I had five other trees that were damaged or down on the property.  We all know this is a bad thing.

I called my brand new  insurance company, State Farm Insurance.  They told me it was no problem, sent an adjuster and told me to hire a tree removal company at their expense. In came a crane and a crew with chainsaws and the section of the tree that was on the roof was removed and the rest felled in the yard.  All the other damaged trees were felled and lay strewn around like a massive game of pick up sticks.  So far, so good.

The weather turned rainy and no more equipment could come in.  We would wait for the ground to freeze for the clean up and the stumping would happen in the spring.  I understood all of that.  I even understood when the dastardly tree guy asked me to settle the claim so he could give his children a decent Christmas.  I can see you shaking your heads.  What I didn't understand was why he didn't come back to finish the job.  I didn't understand his excuses for the next year and the year after that.  I didn't understand why he stopped taking my calls.


I couldn't cut the grass in much of the yard.  Weeds were taking over and the deck was collapsing.  Here comes the embarrassing shot (cringing as I post this pic) ~






The answer was for me to build this ~



 Just kidding!  It took a whack of cash and two strong guys a week to build this patio.

This is the start of the yard makeover.  I'm still waiting for Ty Pennington, who is, apparently otherwise engaged.  Any tips on low maintenance, low cost landscaping are gratefully accepted!


The patio installation has used all the exterior budget and I have to furnish it with thrift, gift, reworked or found pieces.  Tomorrow, I'll show you what I have done with what was on hand, some help from my sister and a lot of inspiration from my blogging friends!

Note:  State Farm Insurance is not compensating me for mentioning them in this post and might be pretty upset at how I handled the dastardly tree guy in my claim.  Shhhh.

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