Timber

The girls and I gave Jared a chainsaw for Father's Day. It's a gift that will get plenty of use in our yard that is mostly trees. In fact, he's already used it twice in yards not belonging to us and a few weeks ago was able to use it at our own house.

We had a sad looking willow tree close to the bottom of our driveway. It had a quite a few dead branches just hanging around and the entire thing was leaning at a rather precarious angle. So we set out one Saturday morning to put it out of it's misery.

Jared did all the heavy lifting and cut the actual tree down while the girls and I offered our encouragement and support. The most exciting part of the whole endeavor was watching the tree as it fell. Because we were pretty sure the tree would fall into the street I was posted on the other side of the road with the assignment to watch out for cars. I was to warn Jared when cars were coming and to get the drivers attention and have them slow down as they passed. I did my best, but I was mostly busy taking a video of Jared as he felled the tree.  It's so fun to watch and hear how excited the kids are about the tree falling! The tree did end up blocking part of the road so Jared had to work quickly to get it cut into sections and out of the way of traffic. Once he had it in pieces the girls and I would load them in the back of the van so they could be driven up to the top of the driveway to dry out and eventually become firewood - if willow even burns well. Any insights on that?

So it's one tree down and so many more to go. Jared's shiny new chainsaw won't be looking shiny and new for long!