Bringing in the pros for tree-trimming and roof cleanup

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When I bought my house, many years ago, the trees were small and I enjoyed going up on the roof, but that was a long time ago. Nowadays I need professional help, and they were here yesterday.

Although there are a lot of drawbacks to living a long life (don't get me started!), one of the benefits is seeing trees on your property grow. I bought this house in 1993 when I was 35 years old and the trees, although small, were already there, so I'd calculate that they're over thirty years old. There's one in the backyard and one in the front courtyard and they now soar over the house giving wonderful shade in the summer.

In addition to lowering my air conditioning bill (I'm in the Phoenix, Arizona area), I love having trees just for their beauty. Phoenix used to be a city of trees, long ago before air conditioning, but nowadays the attitude for many people is that they're just too much trouble. Sadly, that just makes Phoenix hotter in the summer, and of course less beautiful.

And now that my trees have grown past being a labor or love and being an expense, I still don't mind. When the crew showed up yesterday I had the place as prepared as I could. I cleaned up the junk that I'd thrown into the side yard, I'd cleaned up the dog poop, I marked the watering heads to make them more visible. But mostly I stayed out of the way and didn't tell them what to do. I had talked to the boss about it, was impressed that he seemed to know what to do, and my motto is always to hire good people and let them do their job. No micromanaging from me!

Something that I hadn't realized was the huge volume of leaves that had gotten stuck on the roof. That's bad for your roof, you know! So they cleaned everything up.

And not only do the trees look great this morning, they're opened up so that when it gets windy they won't fall down. There's a particular look to trees that have been properly trimmed, and this is it.

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