Hurricane Ike Cleanup

So, the tree from yesterday is now cut up and has been hauled to the street. Yuck - Ugly fence left.

There is the mound, on the left, that was once the "climbing tree". Big Daddy is hauling up a trash can of debris that covered the storm drain.

Here is Skibbie pulling the second garbage can full of storm drain debris.


Here is the cleanedup fence and tree limbs. The neighbor had a little hockey rink on this side of the fence. The little wall was the place you stood to take shots at the goal. He had the floor lined with linoleum to make a slick surface.

Here is the view of the backyard without the climbing tree. Boo Hoo!

So here's a quick story. Big Daddy was cutting the tree, chainsaw buzzing, when Skibbie went up into the fort. She looked over the fence and saw our neighbor behind us, whom I have never met, asking to see "your mom". I climbed up and we started trying to yell to each other over the sound of the chainsaw. Ridiculous, I know. So I finally got Big Daddy's attention to turn off the chainsaw and the conversation went something like this:

Me: Did you get much damage?
Back-fence Neighbor: Oh no, just this debris.
Me: Oh, that's good.
Back-fence Neighbor: hmmm.
Me: We lost a fence and this tree. That's what we are cutting up now.
Back-fence Neighbor: Are you planning on replacing it, because I'm going to plant some queen palms and I was hoping we could coordinate so my trees wouldn't compete with yours.
Me: Well, actually we just had two landscaping companies out on Monday to give us estimates but I had a tree here, so I guess I'll have to have them come back now. What was your name?

Unbelievable. Guess that's where the saying "Good Fences make Good Neighbors" comes from.