Goodbye Fred

Michael and I had the most beautiful yucca in our front yard. It must have been 8 feet tall and the birds loved to sit in it and sing to us. One day when my parents were visiting from New York, my Dad asked me what it is called. I couldn't think of the word yucca, so I answered, "We call it Fred." If you know my father's sense of humor, you know that he appreciated this answer immensely. Last week, we had a huge windstorm and Fred was blown over. It was a sad day at the Smith household. As I was taking this photo, my neighbor Janet came over to sympathize. She is the best neighbor ever! She and I talk over the wall quite often and she is a favorite friend to my boys. She also used to run her own landscaping business. I told her I was at a loss for how to get rid of him and wondered if I could create a landscape around him. :) So she offered to help me get Fred to his final resting place. She got out her reciprocating saw and went to work. Once he was cut up into more manageable pieces, she called her two teenage boys outside and we loaded up her truck (you can see it in the background of the photo). It took up the entire bed of her truck! Then she hauled it to the dump for me. Poor Fred. Janet asked me if I needed a minute to say goodbye before she took it away. She is a crack-up.

Here is the best neighbor ever having lots of fun with her power tool. We joked that they should make a new reality show, "Housewives with tools." Her birthday was two days later and she invited the kids and me over for cake and ice cream. We brought her a gift card to Home Depot. It just seemed appropriate.
Introducing the son of Fred: our replacement yucca. He's a little smaller but full of potential.