TIMBER!!

We had a little shin dig at our house the evening before the Fourth. Nothing big, just a little microburst of wind that knocked our trees over onto our house. 

The wind lasted about 25 minutes, and was gone. But it was gusty, man! Gusty enough to topple 5 of our cottonwood beauties. 

 They only fell right in front of the house, which is odd. They completely covered the whole front.

 Wanna know why? No roots.

Metaphors welcome. Try this one.

 Within minutes we had neighbors over assessing the situation.

 And nearly every person who passed by stopped. backed up. and stared.

 My kids are all about safety, so they donned their bike helmets before checking it out. Claire donned her piglet beanie. That'd help in the event of catastrophe, right?

 Emmy dug out the clippers and got right to work.

 Caleb called our insurance company and was told that nothing could be done until Monday, because of the Fourth of July weekend. So we just enjoyed our covered porch and had a lovely holiday!

On Monday a few different tree removal services came by and gave us quotes which were surprisingly less than we had expected. Then Caleb decided to do it himself. Because he could. (and it sounded kinda fun).

 His chain saw was in need of a new chain, so he chopped the smaller ones down with his sawzall. Because he's gnarly like that.

 Then the neighbor came over with his chainsaw, which wouldn't start. ?
So they axed it the rest of the way down.

 Then the other neighbor came over with a REAL chainsaw and got the job done.
Meanwhile, another neighbor had driven by and said he'd be back in an hour or so to help us take down the rest.

Evening came, so they cleaned up and called it a day. Then the neighbor came back! So they got back to work!

 By the time the ropes were up and Mr. Climber Man was harnessed and ready to go, it was dark! And WAY past my kid's bedtime!

 But they were having none of that. I tried, but only briefly. I knew they weren't going to sleep with all this excitement going on, and that was fine with me.
I pulled out the bench, stuck them all on it so they would stay put and not get a trunk dropped on their head, and they stayed put and enjoyed the show.

 As did the rest of us.

 This guy was hilarious. He was having so much fun up there. Men really are just grown up boys.  Caleb stuck his head out of the other sky light, see him there on the left? He was the coach.

 Then the branches started falling! And falling and falling and falling. That guy was chain sawing and dropping branches off the roof for over two hours (my kids did eventually go to bed).

We assumed that the trees would want to fall once he got to the edge of the house, but they had been resting there for a week by this time, and they were still holding up an entire hill of dirt around their roots, so they were quite content to stay at their angle even after their tops were removed. Once we figured that out, Mr. ChainSaw just straddled the tree and sawed as he scooted down! 

 This is from the upstairs spare bedroom window. You're doing great! Keep it up! We love you!

 The coaches coached on, and the rope stayed taut. Which means no body died! That's good!

 Once the big trunk was down they logged it, and stacked it.

 Then there was one last tree, and it was the largest of them all. Naturally. And it was resting on the house, unlike the other ones. So they tied it to Caleb's winch on the front of his truck, because that's what boys do. Except for the winch wanted to pull downwards as well as off and the tree wanted to just go straight off, so they rigged those two poles that you see there, and when Caleb tightened the winch the trunk pivoted on those poles, and came right down! I'll show you, here:

By then it was passed midnight, and by the time the four of us got done standing in the driveway talking about bikes (we're all bike geeks) (Mr. Chainsaw owns the bike shop in town) (that's not really his name) it was after 1:00am. So we said good night.

 And the next morning we played! Because that's what we're good at.
The kids, Katie, and I removed all the branches from this last trunk, and moved every single branch that had been thrown down from the roof into one nice neat gigantuous pile.

Then when Caleb came home that evening, he chopped up the last trunk and we made a wood stack fence. Under a rainbow. Because we're awesome like that here in Midway, UT.

 P.S. Does it get cuter than this? I think not.