what a difference a day makes.

Last week, our lovely trees were trimmed. They are still lovely, and they are enormously tall. The house is getting more sun now, which means I'm going to need to put some curtains in places I hadn't anticipated needing them, but that's okay. We no longer have to fear being smooshed by trees falling on our roof.

Bonuses to having trees trimmed (aside from a lack of fear):

• Enough sunlight that I can actually have a kitchen garden, a potager if you will. And things will grow in it.
• I think I can squeeze in a couple of dwarf apple trees.
• I can grow flowers, and I still have enough shaded lawn for a shade garden.
• We can now see the sky from the house. Before, the canopy was so dense that you had to go outside to see if it was sunny or not. You couldn't really tell from inside.
• Bugs cannot use tree limbs as bridges to our windows. Hooray!!
• You can see our house from the street.

Drawbacks to having the trees trimmed:

• We'll have to move several of the shade-loving plants that we'd installed a few weeks ago...lest they bake.
• The formal room is getting enough sun now that it's a little toasty in the morning.
• We're going to have to mow the lawn.
• I miss the shade from the tree in our courtyard. I'll get over it.
• You can see our house from the street, which means you can see the atrocious state of the siding on the second floor. You can also see quite clearly the turquoise shutters and iron trim. I have someone lined up to rectify the turquoise issue.

Here are some before and after pics. And a random bullet that I can't seem to get rid of.

• 
  The front yard.
  

The front yard, looking toward the street. See the big tree in the right foreground? It's in the before picture, you can just barely see it because of all the branches and brush.

The big tree in the courtyard. See the sky in the after picture??