Progress Report #15

September 27, 2008...Our good friend, Jeff, showed up bright and early for a long day of back-breaking labor. We worked from morning until suppertime, cutting, stacking and burning...God granted us another safe and beautiful workday, with only a few mishaps. One thing we've learned is that there is never a "sure thing" when felling trees. Especially when you're working on an incline. Considering we (and by "we" I mean my hubby, of course) have very little experience doing this type of thing, we're so thankful that God has protected us and blessed our efforts.

Back to mishaps. Once in awhile, a tree just doesn't do what you think (or hope) it will do. Sometimes you think for sure it will fall in a certain direction, then it twists, or hops, or is weighted in a way that is hidden to the naked eye (and then there is the incline...) and it ends up somewhere else. Sometimes, the "somewhere else" is caught in another tree. While this can be annoying, it is these moments that I find exciting...when one must STOP...and rely on one's WIT, not BRAUN, to find a solution. (Although braun is usually employed at some point of the process!)

Below, in photo essay, is a chain of events that took about 45 minutes to free one such tree.
(Remember you can click on any photo for a full-screen view.)






















You can see, after all this, the tree is still hung-up. At this point, the men just started cutting sections off the tree, until they couldn't reach up any higher. Hubby then decided to cut down the tree in which the first tree was stuck, and the problem was solved.

Thankfully, the second tree fell as desired.

Stay tuned,
Kris