Work Begins

Louie the builder rang me and said that his team would be turning up at 7am on Thursday to look at the back yard and begin setting out. I hadn't really grasped what this meant, but when two men turned up with chainsaws I sent the boys out for their final climb on our large Parramatta Wattle.


The sound and import of the chainsaw sent the Sprig into howls at breakfast. "They're cutting down my climbing tree!" Between the two of them, the noise was deafening. You will remember that we were misinformed about the size that these wattles can grow to. While its shade and climbable branches were welcome, the solar hot water system has been shaded somewhat and there was quite a lot of cracking in the house during our dry spell.

Once it was down, our builders estimated it at 13m tall.


The boys also removed the mulberry tree that shaded and disguised our carport, which had been too narrow to use. We had stuck a table (collected at Council cleanup) under it and used the area for outdoor meals and messy craft.

The pile of brush from the two trees was enormous. The fun of climbing in and among it helped the boys deal with the sorrow of losing their favourite tree yesterday.


Once the mulberry was gone, the carport could come down.


So to recapitulate, the scene at 7:30 on Thursday morning was this:


This morning it was this: