A Tale About Trees

The last two days have been quite an experience.  We have 7 trees in our yard and had a tree-trimmer come and trim six of them.  Were talking a major trim job.  He was very good, but to keep our cost down, he doesn't do his own clean up. 

He came on Monday afternoon and by supper time he had done four trees.  We began to clean up the mess.  Lynn would saw and I would carry the pieces to a place at the back of  our garden to burn them.  By 7:00 pm we were already exhausted, and didn't seem to have made much of a dent.  Lynn had taken off work for Monday and Tuesday so that we could get this done.  He said to me, "Do you think we could get anyone to help us?"  He seemed so discouraged. 

I remembered that it was Spring Break.  So I immediately e-mailed several people in church who I thought might have contact with teen-agers, pleading for anyone available to come and help, and we would pay them.

By 9:30 pm I had received a call from one of the boys and he said there would be two of them coming.

What a blessing and a total God-send.  These boys were such hard workers. By noon we had almost the entire mess cleaned up.  However, the tree-trimmer was coming back that afternoon to do the other 2 trees.  The boys said, no problem!  Give us a call when he's done and we'll come back. 

He finished trimming at 3:30 pm and by 5:00 we were finished.  We thanked the boys, paid them and told them they had been a God-send.  They told us anytime we had work to give them a call.

Not only were Lynn and I so encouraged and thrilled to have our yard nice and clean.  It also restored my faith in young people.  These 2 boys were so cheerful and pleasant to work with, and it was a joy to get to know them. 

This is the fire that we kept going all day.  It doesn't look very large here but there were times that it was huge.  There was quite a lot of wind, But we watched it and it did very well.  (I think we did singe the grass

just a little). I couldn't believe how much we burned.  Lynn also cut up quite a bit of it for firewood.  

The above 2 pictures are the "after" pics.  I thought it was interesting that I also got the shadows of the trees.  Apparently the sun was just at the right spot to cast these shadows. 

It was a truly exhausting job, but we are so glad to have it done.  The plus side is that I also now have a farmer's tan.  Why didn't I wear a sleeveless top?!  I also have some very sore leg muscles.  But this, too, shall pass.