Deforestation

We used to have about 2 dozen Chinese elms around our house that gave good shade, but looked trashy.  Michael and I cut down about half of them a month ago, but we were going to leave the rest for shade until we got ready to landscape.  Well, after huge limbs started falling randomly, we decided that -- for safety's sake -- we'd better cut down the rest immediately.  The remaining trees were too high and too close to our house and/or the neighbors' fences to cut them ourselves, so we hired it done.  We also removed the deck in preparation for landscaping and, when we found that it had rotted, we were glad we took it down when we did.