This is Rob, he's a really excellent arborist that I've been working with for the last 5 years. Today he was here to clear out some of the dead branches in the enormous street trees around the house, we have four mature ash trees that need regular care*. The leaves haven't yet started to turn their vivid purple/red fall color, the big leaf drop tends to happen late November.

Guys were here first thing this morning to deal with the dryer vent situation, unfortunately it wasn't that straightforward, all the activity of detaching-reattaching during flooring and painting had upset the set up (one I knew nothing about - the joy of old houses, you discover bizarre and not so great work that came before) and the ductwork had collapsed inside the laundry room wall, out the foundation, and through the crawl space. After a few hours work they were able to reconnect everything and amazingly didn't have to open up a wall to get to it! I've been running the dryer most of the day and all is well. Hurrah!

There's never a dull moment around here and it's been a loooong day.

* In Portland the care and maintenance of street trees is the responsibility of homeowners, the city owns the trees and you can't do anything without a permit issued by them. It's an interesting set up, knowing a good and trustworthy arborist is seriously helpful. If there is a tree emergency (fallen tree in the road) the urban forestry dept. will deal with it but all other stuff is down to the homeowner.