Feeling Productive!

Madison wanted to go outside earlier today, even though it was overcast and rather cool, so I started working on clearing out the area around the trees by the back fence. Don't be fooled. The yard is fairly long but really shallow; the patio and sliding glass door are only a few feet to the right of this photo :) Anyway, I started pruning more branches back on the trees, pulling all the dead twigs from last season's blooms, and raking out the areas in between that were full of last season's leaves off of the trees. Oh, what would I give for a leaf rake instead of a garden rake right now! Anyway, this is my pile of stuff ready to bag up and the area along the fence that it just came out of. I was so pleased!As I was going, I also removed all of these pieces of wood and plastic strapping stuff. They used to be the supports for the trees when they were younger, but when we moved here most of the wooden supports were laying on the ground behind the trees against the fence. I figure the trees don't need them any more and I am likely to either freecycle or recycle them, depending on what the rental management place says. Who knows, the owners might want to keep them or something...
The two piles of branches here are what I've trimmed off of the trees. The new growth on the branches was making mowing the lawn a rather ridiculous affair, since I had to bend down lower than the handle on the mower to push past them. Now I just need to get them cut in smaller pieces so I can put them in my trunk to take to the recycling center on Saturday. Yard waste drop-off (for those who haven't caught this detail in previous posts) is only on the second and fourth Saturdays of the month, so I need to take advantage of it this weekend or have to wait another two weeks!
Since Madison was napping the latter half of my work time, I didn't wear my iPod; the last thing I need is for her to get up and get into trouble in the house while I'm not in there to see it, so I felt like I needed to leave it off so that I could pay attention if I saw/heard something from inside the house. It worked out okay, though, because this bird sat nearby and sang for me periodically while I was working :) Well, he probably was singing for someone else, but I got to enjoy it just the same!