Progress

Monday morning was brilliant. There was no fog and the sun warmed up the morning so that even a chilly five degrees felt pleasant. We got out by mid-morning with the power tools -- Ken with the rototiller and me with the hedge trimmers -- and started working. The hedge trimmer is electric, so to use it means pulling out the fifty-meter extension cords and deploying them out along the garden path before plugging in to trim.

I didn't take any photos of the yard work, but Ken did, so maybe he'll post some.

I needed a ladder to get to the top of the forsythia bush, but that was pretty easy since I had done a major pruning job on it last summer. After doing the lavender, the daisy patch, the flower stalks around the well, and another shrub or two, I got out the hand saw and set to work on our smallest apple tree. It was full of mistletoe. Ken cut out some of the lower branches over the weekend, so I got up on the ladder to work on the higher up branches. The tree looks much better now, but it still needs to be shaped a little more to make it less lopsided. I think I'll burn the trimmings in a few days (mainly to kill the mistletoe). We're far from done, but we got a good start. Rain is predicted for Friday, so we'll see how much we can get done before that.