I cut down a tree -- to save a gutter . . .

So, shortly after closing on our place, I followed the advice of our home inspector, Jeff Nathan -- who was fantastic -- and cut down a Juniper tree that was bumping up against my gutter.

Clearly, something had to be done.

Jeff, despite being a great home inspector, wasn't always a great photographer.  So, here is a better shot of the three in its offending condition, just slamming into my gutter without any regard for where my rain water goes!

 I don't know much about trees, but I suspect that this was planted about the same time as the house as a little sapling and since grew up and out of control into the house.  What was a bit odd about this was that Mrs. Trossman was good about landscaping -- she had a crew in every week.  You would have thought that they'd have taken this down for her.

It was one of the easiest things that I could do -- after a quick "man purchase" of this guy:

That problem quickly became this:

Margot graciously posed in the bathroom widow to show the new sense of spaciousness as well as saving the gutter.

I've saved most of this for firewood and mulch (bought a used garden waste shredder from a guy in Waukegan - more on him later).

And there is how long this sucker had been pressing up against the house with its nice indentation.  At least the gutter fought back a bit.

Probably one of the easiest and most satisfying (as well as the first) "home improvement" projects that I did.  If being a suburban dad was a video game, I think that I would have scored about three extra lives!!  Gutters, landscaping, destruction.  Its like the suburban dad trifecta!