Cleaning up from a hurricane

During the past several weeks, we have seen a parade of cleanup crews meandering through the neighborhood, picking up debris. First was the convoy of huge trucks, accompanied by a lifter, that took away the tree limbs. Then another truck and lifter came and got the bagged debris. Finally (we thought), a third truck and lifter came through, picking up stuff like broken fences and other large trash. At last, things looked pretty normal again (except for all of the dead limbs still hanging in the trees).

Week before last, I was surprised to see a huge truck with a long arm attached, the kind that has a bucket on the end. A crew of six on the ground were watching the one guy who got to go up in the bucket and cut dead limbs out of the trees. He cut down anything that could remotely end up on the public sidewalks or the street, and the ground crew left us two more piles of tree debris out front. Finally, last week yet another truck and lifter came through to pick up those limbs.

I actually took pictures of quite a few of these cleanup efforts, and I have transferred them from my camera to my computer, but I have yet to figure out how to access them...unfortunately, I have a new computer which runs VISTA, and I haven't deciphered the quirks of this operating system to know what's what. Maybe someday I'll learn how to do it right!