Tree Felling

On Saturday, unbeknownst to myself until the last minute, it was decided to take down our pine tree beside the house. The weather wasn't the best of help: rain was in the forecast, and, not only that, tornado watches as well...but, we did it anyway. :D So you can imagine the state we were in at the time. The tree leaned repeatedly toward the house, scaring everyone. Neighbors and friends watched the scene from across the street, and Mom fervently prayed for safety while she cooked our dinner. We tied around 3-4 ropes to the poor thing, hoping it wouldn't threaten the house anymore--though it didn't ease Mum's fears much. Ropes break. :P In fact, I found that out the hard way because I accelerated a leetle too much with the truck. Oh yes, we definitely had the truck helping. Without a truck the tree would have hit our house regardless of 3-4 ropes. (as a side note to give better perspective, the tree was around 55 feet tall)

So coming to the tree falling (with the help of our across-the-street-next-door neighbor). It must be noted that the ropes were tied to the truck. I was told to go ahead and start bringing the tree down. We all heard the distinctive sound of a tree falling: those certain cracking noises. And when I looked in my side mirror, and saw that tree falling, in my head I told myself: "AHHHHH!! THE TREE IS FALLING ON ME!!! I NEED TO GO!!!" Down went the accelerator, the speedometer thing went up suddenly, and I went flying into...our garage. Thankfully, though, Mom suggested that we take all the vehicles out, or else we might have ended up with a dent the size of Haley's comet in the back end of the van. Hehe, I could see something happening on Sunday along these lines,

"Good morning! Um, what happened to your van?!"
"The van? Oh, Ashton freaked out when the tree fell down and flew right into the garage with the truck."
"What?!"

Then later on when everything was cleared out of the way, around eleven or so feet of the tree was left of the trunk. So Dad cut around the base, hooked a rope around the top, and I played some bungee jumping between the tree and truck. If the tree didn't fall down, the truck came jolting back. Fun stuff... :D

Pictures, pictures, pictures...





And on Sunday, here's something we did at the Evans' house... :D