I'm biting the bullet and having trees removed. EIGHTEEN trees. And the thing is... this won't even make a dent in the forested sanctuary of my back yard. The biggest difference will be to the front yard, where 4 out of the 5 trees will be removed.

I feel somewhat guilty about the oak... it is a nice tree. At least, it's nice until early November, when I start to curse its name. The leaves of my maples fall politely all at once, and I dedicate one afternoon to mulching them for my garden beds. The leaves on the oak, on the other hand, start falling around Halloween and continue to fall until March. And then there's all the other droppings... the tree is always pooping sticks onto my yard. It's also decorated with widow-makers: giant broken limbs hanging 60 feet up, just waiting for the perfect storm to knock them loose.

And then there's the ACORNS. Millions of them. The yard becomes like the ball pit at Ikea, if the balls were marbles with tiny sharp prongs that stab the bottoms of bare feet. I swear the squirrels throw them with force... my bedroom is a percussion instrument. I *!@%$* hate acorns.

Then there are the scraggly ugly trees in the back yard that are irritating to mow around and add no beauty. There are a few crowded fir trees that are becoming weak and attracting carpenter ants... they're dead vertical fire starters. A couple others have made sport of dropping onto my fence.