INITIAL REPORT AND FINDINGS1. Moving sucks. Moving with a one month old is HORRIBLE. It turns out if you give a moving company the responsibility of packing your stuff, they will pack ALL your stuff, including the stray toothpicks on the bottom of the drawer and the couple ounces of milk left. Everything will be wrapped in tons of paper. It will easily double the cost of materials you were estimated and double the overall total cost of the move, and they will start at 9am and won't leave your new house until 10pm. Eff moving.2. Met the first neighbor. We had a neighborly chat. I enjoyed it.3. The prior owners let this place go to hell. There hasn't been any trimming or gardening in millenia. I can't wait this weekend to hit up the home depot and get some shovels and hedge clippers and a chainsaw. Multiple trees are coming down, multiple bushes are being dug up. A gate was hanging half-cocked off the front fence, tied there with ziptie, and in a fit of rage yesterday I stormed out front, tore it out, and set it in the back with the enormous stack of trash and boxes leftover from the move.4. Craigslist is amazing. You can convince dozens of people to e-mail you to come pick up the horrendous eyesore that is the enormous wooden playset on your FRONT lawn, and they will fight over who will get there first. Dude supposed to show in an hour to disassemble that monster and cart it off. Score 1 for the city slicker.5. There is a ####ing cat door in my door to the basement. I assume that's what it is. It's a tiny little door at the bottom of a real door. What the hell.6. Old houses are scary. Unfinished scary basements and attics. And when the heat came on yesterday the knocking and banging in the pipes was so bad it sounded like someone was dropping grand pianos on our house. I got a quick tutorial from the guy who was here today installing the new kitchen appliances and he tells me we need "bleeders" on all the radiators, which should stop the knocking.7. This house is like the money pit. It's smaller and dirtier and needs more work than we remember. Total and complete neglect from the prior homeowners. I'm amazed people live like that. Getting a painter in next week to coat the first floor. All the walls are covered in dirt. 8. Kids are amazing. I have my one month old sitting in this seat with a spinning mobile above her and she is ENCHANTED by those stupid green ducks and yellow moons.9. It was cool that the Verizon guy finally got here and installed our FioS. I'm not sure about his design choice when he ran a white cable up the side of our house and into the upstairs bedroom.10. Old creaky floors sort of make me want to poke my eyes out. On the upside, if we ever have an intruder I'll know exactly where the SOB is.11. There's no garbage chute here. Chatted up the garbage men this morning when they hauled off just half the crap I left at the curb. Gave 'em a tip, introduced ourselves as the new owners, and apologized for putting a zillion things out. 12. HOLY CRAP it is quiet out here. We sat on our stoop drinking wine and smoking cigarettes and it was dead silence. Very cool and relaxing, but creepy as hell.13. Bugs. Ants, bees, flies, mosquitoes. We didn't have these in our apartment. But if we leave the doors open here for more than 4 seconds, it's like the whole ####### insect kingdom. I guess I need fly swatters.We're a good month from being able to host a barbecue. This #### is hard work.
A foot? Errr... not unless there's a clear (and I mean clear) path to fall, and no chance of it hitting anything if things go wrong. Two feet... forget it. That's a big tree.And then removing them... they weigh a LOT more than you think.Do-able if your friends have a truck and one of them really "knows" how to cut down trees.
... To be followed by after 
New houseNew lifestylenew wifenew kidGood luck 
I used to work for a tree service in college. We took out massive trees. It was perilous work. That quote applies to them. What Otis wants to do is doable enough for anyone with a chain saw, determined and not stupid. His trees sound small enough.A tree or branch straight cut will fall in the combined direction of it's weight distribution and gravity. I've seen trees leaning left that you would guarantee would fall that way, but because heavy branches were growing back to the right it fell that way or some way inbetween.
