"Timberrrrr..."

A week ago, my family became a work crew. My dad's office needs to have the landscape done quickly and so we all showed up to help. This is the second time this year that we've done this and I think it's become one of my favorite Saturday activities. In the above picture, my SIL (sister-in-law) and I are trying to move dirt to make it even so that eventually we can plant some bushes.

Here's my SIL again and my mom moving some of that dirt. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture after we finished all our work so you could see the beauty we created.

Earlier in the week, there was a big snow storm that put snow everywhere, and then it rained on the snow, making old branches really heavy. At Dad's work, the old tree had one large branch broke but was still connected to the tree and so the guys took the challenge to get the branch off the old tree.

They hooked up tow straps to the tree and to my brothers' truck. Then they pulled and pulled and went many different directions, trying to break the rest of the branch from the tree.

At one point I thought that maybe the tree would win. My brother would punch his accelerator and then when the tow straps would pull taunt, the tree would lift the trucks' back two tires and the truck would be pulled back.

The branch finally did come down. Not where we exactly wanted it since the tip landed on Dad's office roof...but it didn't cause too much damage.

One of my brothers ran home and got a chain saw so that we could cut the huge branch into smaller pieces so that we could then move the branch and get everything ready to landscape.