12 August 2009

Wow. There actually is a house back there.

When we moved in, we had our own little shroud. Actually, it was not so little. We were the proud owners of 50 year-old privet hedges. Sounds cool, right? Well, it would have been, except that they were rarely, if ever, pruned, and were therefore out of control!





A couple weeks ago, we decided to take matters into our own hands. Alex rented a chainsaw and spent hours taking these babies out. He said his arms were still shaking the next day.





I've never seen so much yard waste in all my life. It practically buried the house. However, one of the great perks of living in the village of Patchogue and paying extraordinarily high taxes is that I just had to call the village and they came with a backhoe and took all of the yard waste away.



When we cut them down, we had lots of comments from all the neighbors. For days, we would see people drive by, slam on their brakes, and back up just to look at the lack of hedges. We heard our next door neighbor actually cheer loudly when he saw what we had done. We are happy too; We feel like a part of the neighborhood because we can actually see the neighborhood.

7 comments:

Dan said...

it's like a nice haircut, after 50 years.

John said...

Now try doing THAT in NYC ...!

bspeck said...

That is crazy! I'm suprised you didn't lose Alex in those. I'm sure Jason would be jealous of all the chain-sawing...

Emily said...

Bravo. Although they looked like they made a pretty effective natural fence, your house will look much better without them. Did Alex also dig out all the roots?? It makes me want to go crawl back into bed just thinking of all that work.

Monica Rich said...

I know I'm one of those people slamming on my brakes. I drive just past your house and have to back up, more often than not.

Unknown said...

Well done! I bet it's nice to see your surroundings. I must say, "privet hedges" remind of me of This Old House. I know this is the second show reference I have made in these comment sections, but it's true. Are there privets out here in the West? I have no idea, but I think the same kind of hacking would be appropriate for the junipers in many of the yards in my neighborhood. Holy smokes, its like an alien infestation.

lw said...

Plenty of fuel for Guy Fawkes day, eh?