Tree Progress

I think it's kind of neat when things like this happen because it brings people together. We have been overwhelmed with support from our neighbors and friends. As a matter of fact, Jeff and a couple of friends have nearly finished removing the tree from our neighbor's yard - $1200 in savings for us! Yes, you are in the wrong business, according to the quotes we received on Friday.

We were ready to hire a service because we don't own a chainsaw and really didn't think it was something that we should mess with anyway because of the way the tree was positioned. Before realizing this we asked our neighbor Craig if we could borrow his chainsaw, but later in the day we emailed him that we had underestimated the size of the branch. Craig, loving a chainsaw related challenge, came over around 4:30 on Friday and said, "awww, we can handle this. I'll be right over." My jaw dropped as he walked home to get his chainsaw. That was the first act of kindness. The second was when I called my friend Melissa to tell her we'd have to cancel our dinner plans at their house because we couldn't pass up the chance for Craig to help us. She responded by saying that she'd send Shawn right over with his chainsaw! So two hours later we had Craig, Shawn and Jeff in the backyard working hard and Melissa, Michelle, me and the two boys inside preparing dinner (pizza, salad and watermelon). It was a really fun night after all!

On Saturday morning Craig came over to help Jeff finish the job, Mark brought his chainsaw over to help, Will let us borrow his wheel barrel and Kim made calls to friends to see if they had a chainsaw we could borrow. I was humbled by the love that our friends and neighbors showed us this weekend. We are so thankful for all of their help.

The first pic is what the tree looked like on Friday morning... in our neighbor's backyard, covering their garden.

This is what the backyard looked like on Friday evening after a few hours of work (taken from our upstairs window). The boys had cut down a lot of the limbs and thrown them over the fence into our backyard. The goal was to remove them asap to try and salvage our neighbor's garden. The couple is in their late 70's/80's and spend a lot of time in their yard and it looks great. It looks like a few of their plants won't make it, but hopefully most of them will bounce back.

Here are Craig and Shawn working hard...