Chainsaw Blues, 1 Tree, 2 Trees, 3 Trees Nooo 4 Trees

“Do you want wood? We got a tree down in our driveway….”  was the message they had on the phone. “Sure, I come in the morning”, I said.  The morning ran up with a blue sky (how great!) and a few cross-island kilometers later I was on the top of their driveway. It’s the long, curved and steep type of driveway and I knew from previous visits that I wouldn’t be able to turn around with a trailer at the end. So…I started to back it down. It went all fine as long as the road was straight down, but then I got in the curve and I made a steering mistake getting the trailer in a too sharp angle to the van. OK, I could go ahead and straighten it out.  Haha…said the van and spun the wheels in the loose dirt. Grrr… what to do, I couldn’t back any further without getting the trailer into a deep ditch,nor could I could I go up again. So I put it in Park and hoped it would stay put. (my handbrake doesn’t work!) I got out watching the van, and was at the ready to jump back in. Got behind the trailer and started to push it sideways. It’s a lightweight aluminum thing. A few push and a few shoves and I had it straight. Back in the van and continue the back-up through the curve. OK, there were 2 trees not one. They weren’t really tall and I had it all cut and loaded in an hour. Next stop was the cemetery where the storm had knocked over a big spruce tree. Luckily it was close to the road. When checking along I discovered it wasn’t one tree but two. They had grown very close together and fallen together. Both had turned up the roots leaving big holes over two graves. One tombstone had fallen off the base and even the concrete foundation underneath was moved sideways. The tombstone was from 1904, so this was a very old grave. At the top end, one of the trees was resting on top of a 3rd. tombstone putting sideways pressure on the stone. That would be very difficult to solve as I sure didn’t want that tombstone to topple. I started to cut off branches, making headway along the tree. All branches had to be loaded onto the trailer and moved just across the road to the dumpsite. I lost count of how many loads I got, but Bea helped after lunch. We did not finish the job today and have to go back on Monday. Back home at 4pm I felt every bone and muscle in my back. and after some coffee and cake (to fill up with calories) I fell asleep on the couch. I was a total knockout. Stupid me I forgot to take the camera along today, but plan to take some pics when going back on Monday.