…Is a Sawzall!

When we first moved into our house, the front yard landscape was dominated by a mammoth evergreen shrub. It may have been an attractive bush once, when it was first planted; but it had grown way out of control. Its diameter was a whopping fourteen feet!

In the Google street photos below, taken a couple years before we moved in, you can see just how enormous this thing really was. It had basically commandeered the entire front yard!

We nicknamed it Ba Sing Se. Because it was green, earthy, and vast enough to hide a flying bison inside.

Something had to be done. We were going to remove the bush completely, but I had a crazy idea: why not carve it into something that looked more like a tree? That way it could still offer some privacy for our big front room window without monopolizing the entire front yard.

So my dad taught me how to use the Sawzall, and afternoon after afternoon I carved away at that thing.

As I hacked away, I found old bottles, all kinds of trash, a can of spray paint, and no small number of black widow spiders. Hauling away all the debris was no small feat, either. The bush was so dense that it produced a pile of branches the size of a large pickup truck and six big black construction bags full of needles (seriously!).

We planted two maple trees flanking the bush on either side, and I kept sawing away as the bush got smaller…

And smaller…

And smaller…

And smaller. A few years down the road when the maple trees have grown and filled in enough to give some privacy for the front of the house, we may remove the bush completely. But for now we’re quite happy with our “American bonsai tree.”

And seriously, zombies, don’t mess with me. I know how to wield a Sawzall, okay? My revenge will be swift and terrible.