Today we watched a team of experts from Nicholas Tree Removal Service wrap up the removal of seven date palm trees, thirty oleander bushes, a mammoth, albeit diseased, prickly pear cactus, and the extraction of ten Italian cypress stumps lurking below mounds of earth along the south and west sides of the house.

While the majority of the removal-related efforts took place yesterday, there were still a half-dozen oleander bush stumps to be ground down to below grade, three Italian cypress stumps in the front yard which would suffer the same fate, and a single oleander bush resembling a huge “lollipop” standing in the center of the front yard – it was the last of the non-native plantings at casa de la hermosa to go…

…and, of all things, this last oleander bush had a small hive of bees hiding in it! I am not kidding! As the crew began to take the first few boughs down with a chain saw, out came the bees, and those bees were not happy – no, no, no, they were not happy at all… Everyone, myself included, stepped back for a few minutes, then as the bees began to dissipate, the crew stepped in to gingerly removed each limb. Another brief pause, and then the stump cutter made short work of the remnants. By 2:00 PM the last of the debris had been collected, the equipment had been loaded back into the trailer, and the crew was preparing to pull away, job done.

We spent the late afternoon marveling at how open, spacious and light-filled the views were, and, as the afternoon drew to a close, I re-installed the pedestrian gate found at the northeast corner of the garage. We removed this gate yesterday to allow the stump cutting machine to slip through the opening with three-quarters of an inch of clearance – whew! The threaded rod securing the gate to the block wall on either side was in pretty good shape, with one notable exception, so after a quick trip to Lowe’s, (…like I said…), I used 2-part epoxy glue to secure a brand new piece of threaded rod, waited patiently while the epoxy glue set, then re-mounted the gate, effectively securing the back yard once more.