Scissor Happy

... been busy the past two days grooming my crape myrtles and pruning the boys... or is it the other way? Never mind, feeling a bit corny and a whole lot sore from my yard work!

First, boys all got hair cuts last night... including daddy.

Gave Shep a little boy haircut... can't decide if I like it. It is always surprising when they get their first haircut that kind of changes they way they look.

Before

After

Ashton got a big time trim too. I love his hair long, but I just dont know how to style it... he could totally pull the Justin Bieber do.

Before

After (I cant keep his mouth clean... I do try!)

Hunter got his typical clip. Dont have a recent before picture of him because he always has a hood or hat on his head. The closest is of me and him together from the ski trip... however there is not much of a difference.

After

Second, I have been researching how to prune crape myrtles. Regardless of what my neighbor said, I knew what he did to his was the picture of crape murder... See picture. He "pruned" or slaudered his in November.

My neighbor's botch job in his crape myrtle.

After some research I found February is the best time, so with the perfect weather, off I went, clippers in hand and ladder under foot. Um, I got in a bit over my head... literally. I cant reach some of the higher branches even with the ladder. So, I since we have probably around 15-20 crape myrtles in our yard (10 being in the front yard), I decided to do them differently to see which way works the best and produces the most blooms.

Here are my pics.
Number 1 - this one I trimmed the heaviest (because I could reach the top).

Number 2 , 3, 4, 5, 6 - These are all way too close together, not my fault. The two little ones got a full trim. The bigger ones, I trimmed what I could reach.

Number 7, 8,9, and 10 - They got little trim... only cut twigs that were less than pencil in diameter. I didnt touch the ones in the backyound.

And, my favorite part... BURNIN'. I was a bit tentative to start a fire without Chad here since I really never have. But, when looking at this brush pile that I had created from trimming the crape myrtles, I knew that staring at the pile for 3 more days could send me into crazy land.

My piles of crape myrtle... notice all those crate myrtles behind the piles... someone loved them crape myrtles when they lived here.


So, starting at 2:45, we burned. It was actually a lot of fun and it burned soooo fast.
Here is my fire.


Here is the fire at the end (5 pm). Notice the pile is gone!!


I am seriously sore from my trimming and hauling. I smell like smoke. I have scratches all over my wrist from the limbs, and then to top it all off, I burned my hand... not on the fire... on the frying pan :) .

I know this is not really an interesting post, but it is really for my record more than anything else so if you read the whole thing you either love yard work or you love me a lot ....

Eucharisteo Part 3 tomorrow!