Yard work ... a never-ending story

So I finally accomplished one of my bigger goals for the yard; I got rid of that hideous old triangle-shaped planted box and the nasty, ragged shrub-bush that was in it when we first moved here. Heather, actually, played a hilarious part in enticing a Latino work crew into cutting down and de-stumping the bush. Thankfully, she only uses her stunning looks for good purposes and not for evil.
After the bush-thing was gone, it took about half a day to dig up and cut up the rotten planted box wood and then dig up most of the major roots from the plant-thing.

With everything prepared, Heather and I picked out a lovely little autumn blaze maple tree and some fine-looking landscaping rocks and I spent another full day planting a tree and building a nice little rock wall around it. It only took three times before I dug a hole in a spot that both Heather and I could agree upon. There's a lesson learned there: show Heather where I'd like to put the hole BEFORE I start digging. And just for the record, Heather making me dig so many holes in rocky, clay-like dirt is much worse than me simply having an opinion on how the inside of the house is decorated.

Anyway, it turned out nice, and we're looking forward to seeing our tree grow over the years. Here are some pics.