Psss...they cut trees at that place...

The Monday after returning from South Carolina passed in a bit of a fog. Tuesday I report to work mid-morning so I can stay later for the evening student's needs. Tuesday for me is a great day: I can sleep in late if I want to!
The Universe conspires against my preference, as my daughter Laura says. I was jolted from my slugabed slumber by both a doorbell ring AND urgent pounding on my front door.
Fearing a dire situation demanded my attention, I rocketed out of bed and down the hall, bare footed, bedhead haired and comfy pajama attired.
I peeked out, then opened the door to see a rather handsome young man in dark glasses and a hard hat leaning against my door jam.

A pink hard hat no less. And other guys stood a few feet back on the lawn.
"We are with the utility company" the guy in pink began. "We need access to your yard to trim your trees." He gave me a look that let me know that this was not a polite request; it was instead a statement of fact.

"The gate's unlocked on the side, knock yourself out," I told him, then shut the door intending to lumber back to bed. It only took the short walk back down the hallway for my mind to register that :
1. Once again I had been lured into conversations at my front door in a slatternly state of attire.
2. That photographing the guys would make for a great blog posting.

I quickly changed to a more appropriate dress, ran a brush through my hair and farded a bit.
Satisfied that while I wasn't at my most fetching, I did look good enough to grace a hard hat occasion.

By the time I was out in back, the crew was arriving with the various cutting tools of the trade.

They hung the loppers from the tree until it looked like an industrial form of Christmas tinsel was being tried out.

Then Pink Hat scaled the tree!

I stood on the other side of the lawn with his crew; one guy was directing cuts, the other two were there to tote out the trimming.

I waited until the climber had gotten pretty high up and settled before turning to the head guy on the ground and announcing quite seriously that there was a baby robin up there and I didn't want it disturbed....tell him to get out of my tree.

I waited a beat as I watched the head guy's faced harden into disbelief before adding "Just kidding!"

He promptly wrapped his hands around his mouth and called out "Hey...the lady says there is a baby robin up there and she wants you down NOW!"

I snapped the above picture just as that bit of news registered in the climber's mind.

And just before the "Just kidding!" was added.

Climber danced from branch to branch, balancing his weight against straps as he cut and lopped the 80 foot high redwood's branches clear of the wires.

The wires run behind our view of the tree so I wasn't upset at the slight gouge in the tree's profile.

The cutter would yell "headache!" then wait for a response in kind from his crew below before dropping the branches that he had cut.

Our faithful orange cat Tiggie naturally came out to snoopervise.

The work being done apparently met with his approval; after a few minutes of observation he sauntered off to take his second morning nap.

The team next moved on to our neighbor's trees. Now the above picture is the view from the south-western most corner of our deck.

This, however, is the view from the couch on the deck and our kitchen window. Oh...would he, could he please, pretty please trim a few of the pine's branches to give us a clear view of Mt. Olympus?

Nope.

No such luck.

Oh well...if we want to see the wider view, we will just have to hike a few feet to the deck rail to see it.

I couldn't help but wonder what would have happened if Bernie had been home at the time.

Knowing him, he probably would have gotten the guys to not only trim our neighbor's tree so we could have a clear field of vision, but they might have also mowed our lawn and washed our car to boot.

I also wonder what trimming might have been made possible if I had opened the door dressed like a "desperate" housewife, instead of a drab one.

And if I had been a few year younger, and few pounds lighter.

I just don't know, and I guess I never will.

But I will think about it each time I see those view blocking branches, and will be plotting and planning what I will be doing the next time the utility company comes by to trim our trees.