Elbow Grease

We've been doing a lot of work around the house this May. It started on Mother's Day weekend when my folks came out and we tackled the basement floor. The next day (Mother's Day itself -- what a treat for my Mom!) we went outside and my dad tore into our Jungle. There was a humongous tree right off our deck that was mostly dead. We decided to do away with that and it went smoothly. Years of cutting trees on their land has proven my dad to know how to handle trees.

This is how the tree started out. You can see the dead stuff on the left that's black.
Eric had the good idea to use a rock on one end of a rope to toss over the limb they were working on. It's hard to get a feel for the size of this tree, but it was pretty darn big. Lots of branches to crash into the side of our house.
Part I of the tree -- this went pretty smoothly.
This portion of the tree required my puny muscles to help. Eric and I were putting all our weight into this. The branch we were working on was tilting back towards our house. This was the one we were most worried about crashing onto the corner of the roof. Whew! Mission accomplished! I think Eric tripped over the sandbox.
So then came the task of cutting this behemoth down into more manageable chunks (although when Eric and I lifted the chunks into the wheelbarrow we just about had a hernia. We couldn't even get one off the ground.)