For the past ten months, this has been the view of our front yard. I am sure that all of the neighbors and passers by will be glad when I finally plant something here. First things first though, I need to get rid of the 6 stumps that so gracefully decorate the front yard. With any luck, that will occur tomorrow.
Yesterday, I saw this gentleman walking around in our front yard. I came out and asked him if I could help him. He took out his card, for a landscape service, and wrote a very small number on the back of it. "I'll take them out", he said. "Each?", I asked. He sad, "no, all of them". Not wanting to get in trouble with someone that gave a bad price for work, I then proceeded to explain to him how deep the roots were and how much work I thought it would be and that I wanted it done by hand and didn't want him to damage the house, etc. (I am sure the OP would not
appreciate a guy driving across the parkway, yanking stumps out with
chains). He said, "no problem, I have a big axe." A big axe? Unless he had several big axes and a herd of big blue oxen, I am sure he won't take these things out so quick.
The gentleman stood there a little longer, thinking, and then wrote another number on the card. Still too low. I started thinking I was in the twilight zone. Who in the world haggles for a HIGHER price??? I then showed him another stump in the back yard and said it would be great to get that removed too. He wrote a final number. It is still too low, I think, but I agreed to it. He is supposed to show up tomorrow with his "team" to remove everything.
I can't help but have a sinking feeling about this. Will the guy even show??? Will he see the error of his ways and bag the whole thing or worse, will he get half-way through it and then walk away? Let's hope that on Monday morning, I am posting a photo of our perfectly cleaned front yard and my wallet won't be the smaller for it. Call me crazy, but something makes me think that this won't be the situation.
This is an odd thing to get excited about but I have to admit I had a rush of excitement. The stumps will finally be gone. He worked for a few hours and said he would come back tomorrow to finish. 4 of the stumps are gone and my water and gas pipes are still intact. This is a great day.
Unfortunately the forecast is for rain today. Hopefully he will be finished by tomorrow if it doesn't work out today. There will now be a few holes in the front yard but I can deal with those over the weekend. The plants in the front pots have also perked up. Maybe the front of the house won't look like such an aberration for the rest of the summer after all.
