A Hard Day's Work

Nick and I have undertaken the task this year of thinning all the overgrown trees and dead limbs on our property. With conditions being so dry, and fire danger high, we are incredibly conscious of the danger of what is basically so much kindling around out house. Nick has been working incredibly hard to cut down and thin trees, while I have assisted in dragging them to a giant pile in our yard. We were intending to chip all the wood once it was piled, but our good intentions have not come to fruition. And what used to be fire danger spread all over our property, has turned into a big dry pile of fire danger consolidated in the front yard.

Several efforts to hire someone to haul it away didn't pan out, and we decided to take matters into our own hands. We borrowed our neighbor's huge trailer, Nick hooked it up to his jeep, and we began the laborious task of loading all the brush onto the trailer. 

Nick started around 8:30 this morning, and I joined him as soon as I had the kids fed and happily hanging out with my mom. It was beyond hard work. We piled the branches as high as we could, about ten feet high, and then strapped them down. Then Nick climbed on top of the precarious pile and jumped up and down to try and compact the branches. Then we repeated the process so we could fit as much as possible on one load. It ended up taking two loads, and most of the day, to get rid of everything. But when it was gone we looked at our empty front yard and breathed a huge sigh of relief. We hopefully made our home a little safer, and that is a beautiful thing.