TIIIIIMMMMMBBBBBBEEERRRRRRR!

Jerad had been traveling for work for the better part of last week and then he took off on again on Friday. But this trip he had volunteered to drive a truck to Duluth for the MS 150 which is a bike ride from Duluth to the Twin Cities for Multiple Sclerosis. This is the first I had heard of it, but it is a huge event. Cargill (Jerad's employer) has a huge team every year and needed drivers to haul all the bikes and camping equipment up to the start line and then to the camping location and slowly make their way back to the cities with the bikers. So he was gone until Sunday morning. He was tired and sunburned but he was ready to get those pine trees down. And I'll tell you, this time he didn't let me hide.

Here is Jerad preparing the trees. He tied a rope to the top so that when he made the first cut, we could pull it in the direction we wanted it to go. Check out all of the helpful neighbors that came to help little me pull. We have me, our neighbor boys, neighbor Sharon, and 2 friends of the neighbor boys. Lots of muscle here. ;-P

We actually pulled so hard the that the rope broke. BEFORE the tree came down! I was a nervous wreck yelling at Jerad to quit cutting b/c we couldn't control where the top fell. When the rope broke it, the top fell back on to the chainsaw and jammed it so it was stuck in the cut. Jerad came down and I ran to the hardware store and bought some thicker rope. Jerad tied it back up and then we were at it again. The picture isn't the best....but maybe you can make out all of us actually pulling with all of our might. This first tree had a huge trunk that Jerad even had to come off the ladder after making the cut to help us pull it down . And then.......TIIIIMMMMBBBEERRRRR!

And now it was time for round two on the second, smaller tree. With it being 1/2 the size in circumference and it wasn't leaning towards the street like the first one, he cut it at the bottom and me and my pullers were able to pull without his help.

Here we are tying up the top of the tree,

Jerad making the cut,

and then TIIIIIMMMMBBBEEEERRR!

Jerad also just plugged away at cutting all of the branches and piling them up to bundle it all. He cut while I stacked or cleaned up all of the broken branches or dead stuff that broke off....not to mention the pine cones that fell from the top. We were very tired and sore by the end of the night. As you will see here, the big trunk from the first tree was still up while Jerad cut all of the branches, but we did get that down too last night. It is nice to have our yard cleaned up today, but I would have given anything to stop for the night and save the rest for another day....but if you know my fiance....work work work until it is finished. Plus he is traveling for 3 days this week again so he didn't want it laying in the yard all week long. He had it all at the curb for the rock star yard waste guy once again....this time not holding any back since it didn't take long to load...and as I was working from home again today....I can tell you it only took him 5 minutes to clear it all away. I tell you....I think we have the cream of the crop yard waste collectors. Now all that is left for me to do while he is away is to move all of the hostas and ferns that were growing underneath the pine trees so we can get the stump grinder next week and tear out those stumps. We are looking at replacing it with a lovely new weeping willow tree. Our privacy will once again return.