The Aftermath

I think that our neighbor has a love affair with his chain saw. Every time a sizable branch falls down, his tree or ours, our yard or his, he is out within hours cutting away. The tree that fell on our house was no exception. Brad went out and help and the kids were fascinated by the process. It was better than T.V. The kids would stand at the window and watch the men cut the tree. Carter was the most fascinated. Our neighbor did such a fantastic job cleaning up the tree that you can't even see a stump (and it was no small tree).

After the tree in the front was cleared, we all headed to our backyard to clean up all the branches that had fallen (nothing chain saw worthy). Brad had barely begun before our neighbor offered the use of his trailer to haul the branches away to a local mulch company. Before we knew it our neighbor, his two middle school boys, two other neighborhood boys and another neighbor were all in our yard helping load up the trailer. Carter thought it was the greatest. He loved picking up sticks and placing them on the trailer. It was so wonderful seeing everyone pitch in and help each other. I know that it made an impact on the kids. Tuesday night we went to Bible study at the church and found that the beautiful tree out front had been a victim of the storm. When Carson saw the fallen tree he said, "Maybe Mr. Mark can cut it up!" At first I thought, "Oh great, he thinks Mark is responsible for cutting down all trees" Then Carson continued to list a bunch of other people, who could help cut up the tree, including himself. For me it was a proud moment that he realized that big jobs are meant to be shared among many people.