17 September 2023

We had two trees removed from our backyard this week. One of the trees was the Raywood Ash on the left of this photo. It rubbed on the roof of our neighbors' garage and was a liability. We waited until September to have them cut down so we could enjoy their shade during the heat of summer. This is the before photo.

And this is the after photo.

The second tree was a Blue Atlas Cedar. It was a very messy tree that dropped needles and sap and made our side yard difficult to use. It was also encroaching on our house. It's remarkable how big our trees have grown in the 18 years since we planted them.

Here's the after photo.

Brandan asked the arborist to leave the tree trunks. We'll keep some of the wood and give some of it to our friend who heats her home with a wood burning stove. Now we have a empty, sunny space to plant.

The tree company also left the chipped up leaves and branches. We'll use this around the yard and in our garden as mulch.

On Thursday Gibson and Becky went to a showing of the movie Napoleon Dynamite followed by a Q&A with Jon Heder (Napoleon Dynamite), Efron Ramirez (Pedro) and Jon Gries (Uncle Rico). We stayed out WAY too late for a school night, but it was fun to watch a classic movie and then hear some of the backstage stories. We learned it was super low budget film and if you saw it in the movie, that's how it happened. For example, Uncle Rico really chucked a steak that hit Napoleon in the face. When Jon Gries tried lobbing the steak, it didn't travel far enough. He had played baseball in college and was confident if he put enough force into it, he could hit Jon Heder. The part where Pedro pedals offscreen was unscripted, but Efron moved out of view of the camera before he ruined the shot by laughing out loud.

On Saturday Brandan and Becky participated in a suicide awareness and prevention walk. We met with a small group of people who walked to honor loved ones who have died by suicide, those who are supporting someone who struggles with suicide ideation and those who struggle themselves. The organizers passed out honor beads to walkers to give a visual representation of the broad impact suicide has in our community. 

Community resources were available at the walk, ranging from medical professionals to a table where people could both leave supportive messages or take a message they needed.