Chop! Chop! Chop!

As you may or may not know, I don't always think things through before I start. (Note, painting kitchen cupboards without proper ventilation...)

Our neighbor has these bushes/trees of some sort planted in their backyard right by the fence that separates our backyards. These lovely bushes have been allowed to grow free for who knows how long, and had effectively claimed our fence and the yard for about 4 feet in. It made it really hard to mow the lawn over by the fence (as you can imagine).

So, yesterday I decided to trim the bushes! I got out my handy dandy pruning shears and headed out. I knew that the bushes were out of control and very bushy, but I didn't really think it would take as long as it did! I figured it'd take 15-20 minutes tops, and I'd have all of the branches cut off... boy was I in for a surprise! It took me almost an hour before I'd finished! WOW!!!
I forgot to take a picture before I started, but this is what they look like today. My side (the right) looked almost exactly like the neighbors' side. The bush (tree?) at the back of the yard is next!!!
(It's a little scary! There's spiders and bunnies and probably snakes under there, too! Yuck!)



My pile of branches. Funny, it doesn't look quite as huge in pictures as it did in person...

Once I got all done, I thought I need a picture of this! So I took one, just before I loaded it all into the garbage can. I was able to cram it all into our garbage can, though! It was super hard! I'm not sure which is more of an accomplishment: cutting it all off, or cramming it in the can...


I realized after who knows how long that my hand was starting to hurt a little... perhaps I should have worn gloves, huh?
There are three blisters that you should be able to see (I can see them, but then again, they're on my hand!). There's two on my middle finger (one on each joint) and one on my ring finger. My pinkie hurts a little bit, too, but there's nothing to see there! (I could see a little tiny baby blister last night, but it's gone today.)


I learned two valuable lessons that I'll try to remember:
1) Gloves are a must when playing with pruning shears! (Hal was like "what do you have against gloves?!")
2) And long sleeves would probably be good, too! You should have seen my arms! Luckily it was only surface scratches and they look much better today!