Trimming Trees

Recently we have marked the one year anniversary of having Hytte in our lives. I still look forward to escaping there each and every time we pack up the car or motorcycle and I hope that it never becomes a chore. It’s not hard now to do yet, Hytte is like a puppy to us still; she's cute and charming and fun to play with- we want everyone to come over and visit. I’ll try to remember to check back in five years from now and let you know how that’s going. With a year of visits to look back on, and having spent time at Hytte now through all four seasons, I have concluded that Fall is bar none going to be my favorite time of year to be there. It is because of the same conditions that were there when we fell hard in love for the cottage - warm colors, low light and calm and the approach. The fallen leaves on the ever long driveway and peek-a-boo views created by missing those leaves are the perfect welcome mat. I truly expected summer to be the best time to visit, and going forward our favorite time of year to spend at Hytte. While summer was a great fun having friends over, playing in the water, crabbing : ( , low tides, bonfires and s’mores. Along with that fun came lots of other people enjoying their cabins and the beach, there was a buzz in the area all summer that wasn't exactly the retreat I had been experiencing. Now that Autumn has arrived the area is calm and quiet again. It is cozy, and may I add wet, out in the woods, with high daytime tides aiding in our seclusion. This weekend we fired up the wood stove for the first time since last spring, making it an inside destination spot for coming in out of the rain to warm up and dry off. For as long as I remember, growing up in the PNW, this has been my favorite time of year. Of course there are always projects to prioritize and tackle, that’s the point of us having a fixer-upper. We have a few things that we need to bang out over the fall, some groundwater drainage lines need replacing, we need to troubleshoot the waterline that extends from our well to the house. It is not buried and therefore freezes when the temperature drops to below freezing. And finally, we need to trim up the trees to let in some more light and improve the amazing view. Maybe our priorities are not in the best order, or maybe we know that it all is going to be done anyway, but we started with the fun stuff and had the trees trimmed over the weekend. When we bought the cottage a year ago there were trees that obviously needed trimming to capture the view, but we decided to wait to see how the light and sun moved throughout the course of the year before we made any irreversible decisions with the trees. We also wanted to wait until the house next door sold and meet our new neighbors before deciding on thinning trees in that direction. Now a year has passed and the new neighbor seems better than we could have imagined- we decided it was time to find a tree service company and get it done before the holidays arrive. We called and met with a few tree pruning folks and the tree service we hired in the end was fantastic, I feel so fortunate. We went with our gut about them, and our gut was right-on this time. They were professional, friendly, considerate to our property and the other trees and plants, they worked continuously and they cleaned our yard up at the end of the day, leaving it better looking than when they arrived. I love finding quality tradesmen, especially when it will be a service I will need again and again. The trees and views are now all...WOW! What an amazing difference a few branches make. Thanks guys!

Coming up in a few weeks we are trimming more trees, but the tree trimming will be indoors, and really they are just plug and play artificial ones. Easy.