So we started out our tenure at our new house with roots in the septic tank and pipes, a frozen broken pipe over the kitchen ceiling, and we’re now rounding out the hat trick with a tree on the side of the house.
Home ownership comes with its share of fun and exciting times and its share of disasters we all have to learn from. Maybe we’re getting all of our trials out of the way quickly so we can enjoy the fun times more!
Last Sunday after church, Justin borrowed my dad’s tractor. Since we had Irwin EMC came by and cut down some trees, we had huge logs that needed to be moved over to the burn pile. While he had the tractor, Justin decided to cut down a huge bradford pear tree between the tennis court and the house. It shed so many leaves this year and neither of us are especially fond of bradford pear trees. I watched from a distance as Justin cut a wedge in the tree. It was hooked to the tractor for tension. Justin had me hop on the tractor, gave me a crash course on driving it, and went to start cutting the back side of the tree to make it fall. There was a loud crack and he jumped back from cutting the tree. He decided to call his dad (who we thought was already on his way) for backup. While we waited for Mr. Sheldon to get there, Justin tried to use the brute force of the tractor to send the tree down. It worked. BUT.
Pulling and pulling with the tractor in four wheel drive worked on getting the tree down. For reasons no one can even understand, the tree went in the complete opposite direction than it was supposed to and hit our house. Geez Louise, it was terrifying seeing a huge tree as tall as your house going down in slow motion. I couldn’t fully process what happened. I just started crying hysterically. I had a panic attack and couldn’t catch my breath. Justin consoled me and reminded me that no one was hurt and we’d figure it all out.
After calming down a minute, we checked everything out and determined that we only had two small broken panes in our window and the gutter pulled off the house. All easy fixes according to Justin.
Justin dug his chainsaw out from under the fallen tree and saw it bent the chainsaw bar. Mr. Sheldon, Michael, Jake, and Ben made it over to our house to help while Justin made calls to see where he could get another bar. I scrambled off to Tractor Supply in Cordele for the replacement bar and chain. After I got back, the guys made quick work of slicing off limbs of the tree, getting the chunks taken off by tractor, and piled up in the burn pile. It was almost all cleaned up by the time it was dark. I have said it a thousand times, but thank God for family!
We learned a good lesson this weekend: hire a tree trimmer or professional for the big stuff! We might have spent a few hundred bucks getting trees taken down, but we would have saved a lot of heartache in the process!
Jake, Ben, and Wyatt got to enjoy some time outside and Wyatt loved the tractor and chainsaw, so there’s always a silver lining!
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