It’s been a big week here at my house. I started out the week getting the giant, terrifying pine trees behind my house taken down. It pains me to see a tree cut down. I am, after all, a bit of a tree hugger, but these things were a danger to themselves and others. For half the summer, my dog ends up looking diseased because I have to cut big patches of her fur out thanks to the sticky sap from the trees. Any furniture I put in the yard would be covered with the same sap, and then there were the needles… Oh the needles.

But that’s not enough reason to go to the trouble and expense of cutting down seven trees (three of which were absolutely huge, and the rest were more like weeds). But every time the wind blew branches came down. So far they’d missed the house, and anyone driving on the private road behind my house, but it was just a matter of time. I mean, the really big trees were probably damn near twice as tall as my house, and they were not pictures of health.

So I saved diligently and then one morning a tree guy showed up on my front steps. My neighbor’s son was with him. They were going to be taking down a couple trees next door and needed to drive up on my lawn to get to them. No problem… but I’ll need a quote while you’re here. (Word of advice: If you ever need tree work done, do it in the winter when the guys aren’t busy.)

And it seems as though I got rid of those suckers just in time… because now Storm Nemo (lame name) is here, and it’s bringing lots of snow and wind. Those trees would have lost a few more limbs in this weather.

I’ve shoveled three times today, because I don’t have a snowblower and tackling 18 inches of snow without one can be daunting. The first couple trips outside were easy. Maybe an inch or so on the ground each time, but then I headed out after dinner… and this time there were at least three inches on the ground. The wind had kicked up and I could barely lift my head to see what I was doing.

That was about 2 hours ago. The snow on my front step is now back up to the door — at least four inches or so, but I can’t bring myself to go out there and shovel again. It looks awful out there… too windy and wet to brave. So, instead I’m Pinterest-ing, thinking about what I’ll plant to replace those trees in the spring.

As I mentioned, there’s a private road behind my house, which means my backyard is a lot like a front yard. So I am now obsessively researching privacy hedges, imagining what I’ll do to build a barrier between me and the passersby on the quiet little road. I’m thinking a combination of evergreen shrubs and faster-growing bushes, like forsythia.

Oh well…back to Pinterest, dreaming of spring, and redundant weather reports (apparently we’ve had about six inches in the last hour).