I had already worked in the garden and taken a shower when I stepped on the porch and heard a chain saw. The sound came from my yard! Going to the bedroom deck, I found D and J taking down a large limb that had split. These wonderful neighbors could see it from their house and offered to remove it several days ago, but I didn’t know when they would come.

I put on garden shoes, picked up gloves, and trotted down with my new garden cart. I couldn’t do much to help, but we loaded small branches in the cart. As I unloaded them onto my growing pile of branches near the back fence, J saw a branch hanging from a nearby tree. It took only seconds for him to cut that branch down, making everything neater.

He returned to the broken limb on the cherry tree, and I watched him position his ladder carefully. D stood by, ready to steady the ladder if necessary. In just a minute or so, the limb made a thud as it landed. Using the saw, J removed little branches and then began cutting the big one into uniform lengths. He made it look so easy. He put it over another log so that where he was cutting was suspended in the air. What was the secret of uniform lengths? He held the saw with the tip at the end, then marked with his eye the spot where the blade ended. Each cut log was a blade length long.

I used D and J instead of their names. If you put the two together, it’s DJ, an abbreviation of disc jockey (someone who selects and plays discs for an audience). They do make beautiful music together as they do yard work.

I have no photographs of this operation, because I’d left my phone in the house. Having already dressed for the day, I was wearing slacks with no pockets. A short video would have shown their ease of working together, but my words will have to suffice. As you can imagine, I’m extremely grateful to D and J for removing that broken branch. You’ve read about only a few hours in the world’s best neighborhood.