Timber!

In an effort to save a little money, Zack decided to remove some of the trees from our bag yard to make room for the pool we are putting in.  It was going to cost over $1000 to have 5 or 6 trees cut down, and we wanted to keep the wood for outdoor and indoor fires, so it made sense to do it ourselves....right?!   

So after purchasing a chainsaw, Zack got to work on his first tree :D  And of course he had a very captive audience.....

Only about 3 cuts in and the chainsaw shut off on him.  After fiddling with the thing for almost an hour, he was finally ready to go at it again.....

Several more cuts and the next thing I see is the neighbor trucking across the yard....his own chainsaw in hand ;D

Apparently, hubby was about to drop a rather large tree right in the middle of our yard and on our brand new trampoline!  He hadn't accounted for the fact that the tree branches on the tree will cause the tree to drop to the heavier side, no matter what HIS intentions were!  

Fortunately, Zack had chosen to start with a smaller tree, and the problem was fairly easily resolved.  Unfortunately, his success gave him license to try it again :/

Only this time it was with a MUCH bigger tree!  The plan was to drop the tree in between our house and the neighbor's house.  Zack had decided that the branches were all on the side of the house and so that's the way the tree would fall no matter what, so it made sense to plan for it to fall that way.  The problem was that there was very little room for error in between the two houses!  Hubby's plan was to tie a rope around the tree to force it to fall where he wanted it to- you can see Josh & Zack pulling the rope in the picture above!

He started cutting the tree and the chainsaw locked up on him several cuts in.  That made for a really dangerous situation because now we had an unstable tree that we had to leave swaying in the wind.  After no luck getting the chainsaw going again, Zack headed to the store to get a much bigger and better new one :D

By the time he finally returned, it was beginning to get late.  I was in the house making dinner and wanted NO part in the process with the exception of the constant little prayer I had playing in my head Lord.....please don't let the tree hit a house.


With all the kids out on the back deck, the plan was put into action.

I'll never forget the way the house shook when that tree hit the ground!

My heart STOPPED.


I ran out on the deck to make sure everyone was still alive.....seriously.

After ensuring all were accounted for, I began to let my eyes wander to the area where the tree had fallen and I remember my husband congratulating himself out loud....yep, right where I wanted it!

And truly it was right where he said it would land..... by God's grace ;D

They began cleaning up and I felt myself beginning to calm down.  My hands quit shaking and I was able to compose myself enough to go and talk to my husband.

The conversation went something like this:

Me: You WILL hire a professional to cut down the rest of the trees.


Hubby: Yep.

Seriously, we never had any idea how dangerous it was until we felt that huge pine hit the ground.

The professionals arrive tomorrow to finish the job, and we will save our chainsaw for cutting the logs into firewood ;D