Lots of pictures in this post. We went to the house a couple of times and took down a few trees. Johnny did some branch limbing "Manuel" style in behind the shop. Things were looking pretty good.
Before
After, hard to see, but we took down one of the tall Jack Pines on the right.
Then "Hurricane Dave" came along to help. That's my new nickname for my cousin Dave, you will see why!
The first thing he did was move the old car out to the street, I need to arrange to have it picked up.
So this is how the front looked before Hurricane Dave came by.
And a few of the back yard.
Here he comes!
After pushing the trees over, he picked them up and shook them to get rid of some of the sand, Johnny cut off the roots, Dave would pick up the roots and shake them again and then pile them up.
Dave Starratt hard at work.
We left that mess and moved to the front. This one fell just right.
And then...
Oops! This one almost gave Dave a heart attack! It was heading right for the house and he couldn't redirect it, and then for some reason it slowed right down and rested gently on the roof, didn't even take off the eave trough!
He lifted it off and moved it over.
Manuel moved in to cut the roots off.
Here we go again!
We thought he would push this one on top of the last two, but he couldn't take the stress. He pushed it into the bush and then pulled it out for limbing.
I can't believe we walked away and left it looking like this, but we did. We had to get home so Johnny could help Budd with gyproc, and we probably won't get back to clean it up until we get back from our trip to Missouri. I told him that I always feel good when we leave because we have made improvements, hmmm, this time? Don't think I can say that, but sometimes it has to get worse before it can get better.
Backyard
Manuel couldn't pull himself away until the power saw ran out of gas. He plans to get a portable sawmill so he's salvaging the big chunks for that, and the rest will keep us warm next year after they dry.
I can't wait to get back there and start the clean up!