Searching for sunlight in the south

In our search for sunlight at the front of our house we asked if we could cut down a spindly maple tree on the boulevard right in front of our door. (That's the maple tree to the left of the arbutus. You can see that when its leaves unfurl another area of sky will be obliterated.) The Saanich arborist refused to cut it down, however he did promise us that the "guys" would come out to do a little trimming of the cedar trees in front. They arrived the other day with their huge truck with the cherry picker and a big grinder on the back.














I was so excited that we might be able to get a bit more sky view from the front of our house. But it didn't turn out that way. They trimmed a few little cedar branches around the incoming wires and took some dead wood off the arbutus and then left.


















They weren't here for long--maybe 40 minutes and 20 of that was spent standing around talking to the arborist who told them what not to cut. I'd kind of been hoping that I might charm them into trimming back a few more branches but they were clearly under direct instructions.

At the end of the job I could see perhaps two square feet more of sky from the front of the house. It was a bit of an disappointment.














Ah well. You can't say we didn't try. We're still waiting to hear from Saanich about our request for a permit to change the driveway. I'll call them on Monday to see what's going on.