Timbe-e-r to the maples

Today was a slightly traumatic day. Peter and I finally had to let go of all the maples behind the tennis court so we can make a path and build a shed for the equipment. Matt Foti's guys were back with Fran doing the overseeing safely on the ground as he directed the cutting. This is a good time to introduce the newest member of our team: Laura. She's a landscape architect; she came over on Monday to see the property fo the first time and so we could meet each
other. She got right into it, and spent most of today helping out with the tree stuff and also helping us with deck issues. Peter, Fran and Laura went over the various areas together:

Then the guys got busy cutting:

Peter helped:

We had a conference about where to put the shed and the path:

More cutting:

The result of all that cutting:

I guess the truth is there is still plenty of screen up high, and when we have the structure of the shed, we'll feel very private again.

Meanwhile, back at the house, Brian and Justin are STILL here 'finishing up'. They re-did the lighting in Peter's dressing room:

Katelyn is STILL trimming out the windows:

Kenny is STILL hanging out of the 3rd floor:

And DJ took a brief break from ginding. You can't see it in the photo, but he was surrounded by a cloud of dust:

We don't know exactly what Bill was doing, but we know it was important:

We made a final decision about the deck today. It will be the ipei wood.It was becoming too cumbersome to try to do the stone and have proper support and enough space for the cars. Miriam was very happy. We didn't want her to feel complacent,so we've asked her to explore the possibilities of moving the stairs from the deck to the yard. It'll help the birch trees but it may not work. We'll see. Lee told me he was also glad we decided to go with the wood deck. I guess the stone would have really been a big deal - not worth it.

Tomorrow the electricians will be running our cables out to the street. Unfortunately, Nstar hasn't appeared yet to do their part, so I'm not exactly sure what happens to the cable once it leaves our property. I guess someone will figure it out. We'll see tomorrow.