One From Our "We Don't Get Out Much" Department......

I posted about a week and a half ago about lightning striking our neighbors' trees and included pictures of the jagged scars left behind on the two pines.

This afternoon a tree service showed up to cut down said trees. Gus and I went out and sat on the porch steps to watch. We don't get a lot of excitement around here.

Gus must have been intrigued. This is the dog who barks at everyone and goes crazy whenever someone he doesn't recognize walks down the street in front of our house. He figures it's his entire neighborhood, and permission must be granted before anyone, human or canine, walks anywhere near his turf.

I didn't have his leash, and I didn't want him inside barking his fool head off and waking up the Sullen Teenager from her nap.

I took a chance on taking him out onto the porch with me, thinking if I had to I would just hold him in my lap. The tree service guys were standing in our yard, holding onto the rope attached to the top of the tree they happened to be working on. They would pull it tight while the guy in the cherry picker on the truck used a chainsaw to cut it into manageable lengths. Manageable in the sense that they had estimated (accurately, it turns out) how long the piece could be without falling onto my car. Gus, however, lay down on the porch beside me and watched the process without uttering a sound. Here are these two strange men in our yard, a truck making a heck of a lot of noise, falling pine trees making the ground shake, and he didn't even move. What a weird dog.

All this to say that I really wanted to take pictures, or perhaps even video, of this whole process. I was fascinated with the skill of these folks, and I was amazed at the tremendous noise that pine trees make when they hit the ground. Even when they're in pieces. Big pieces make the ground shake when they hit just like a whole tree does.

But I felt like I was trespassing if I took pictures of the neighbors' trees. They were, after all, in their yard, and I noticed that she was taking pictures. But that was permissible because they were her trees.

I had serious photo envy. I wanted to take pictures to show the three people who read this blog how a tree service goes about removing two tall, damaged pine trees. I wanted to document the fact that there used to be two trees where now there are just stumps. And gaping holes in the landscape of the yard. [Actually, he has many more pine trees, and Hubby can't figure out why he didn't just go ahead and get rid of all of them. Pine trees are a nuisance around here in an ice storm.] My desire for the photos, however, couldn't override the idea that I would be considered silly for taking pictures of someone else's ex-trees.

Just what is the etiquette of photographing someone else's trees? Or house? Pets? Children? Oh my goodness, I'm pretty sure you could go to jail these days just for snapping a photo of someone's child.

Would I be offended if we were having trees cut down and the neighbors came out of their houses to gawk and take pictures? Hmmmm....... I don't THINK so. I might just think they seriously needed to get a life.