Lumberjack Derek

In another life, Derek was a logger! Long ago when we first moved into the Marysville house that my parents owned (we rented) there was this lone apple tree in the front yard. Not a bad tree, a cute little tree. From the beginning Derek had a hate-hate relationship with that tree. Not sure why he hated the tree so much, he just didnt like it! Derek had mentioned to my parents that he had wanted to take the tree out, open the yard for a better lawn, but the answer was no.. Not a maybe, but a NO! :) Well the parents wanted the tree pruned, something you should do every year... Let me give you an example of what the tree looked like to begin with:

Okay, now Derek volunteered to prune the tree and the best tool he thought for the job was a chainsaw! Typically you prune with... Pruners! nip some branches, easy peazy! Well I came home to this!
Oh he pruned it all right, sawed off every branch til it was nothing but a 5 limbed stump! Quite commical actually, but I am fairly certain my parents (mom in particular) did not find this very funny.. at all! Now that the tree was nothing more than a stump, it eventually was completely removed.

The yard was much better to deal with, it did open it up and we replanted a nice big bush in the corner to compensate. So years later when it was appropriate to finally joke about the situation, we now tease Derek about his pruning abilities and he is the first to come to mind if anyone wants/needs a tree taken out! :) He took down a really big tree 2 years ago on our property and then I believe he took out one of his x-boss's trees as well.

Tyler asked him to take out 8 trees at Kathy's house, so this past Saturday we went out and finished that job. These trees at Kathy's all ran parallel to her house and were within striking distance to the house, so the guys had to cable the trees off to ensure they fell the right direction and all 8 trees managed to fall perfectly, avoiding any of Kathy's existing fence posted, 3 other small baby trees, and the house... Derek did a great job and Kathy was very thankful, and I'm sure she was relieved to be able to breath again when that final tree hit the ground and not the house! :)

Here are some pics of Derek taking out the trees. At times it hailed, at times it was clear and then after a while it just continually dumped rain on us, we left her house drenched and in desperate need of a shower.

Here's also a picture of Russell, he was being a baby at this moment and begging me to lift him up on my shoulders! :) Isn't he the cutest dog ever!!!!

On Sunday the weather was very cooperative so we headed to Lords Hill to meet up with a few others for a club ride. There were 5 of us to start on the ride, 2 riders left us half way through so Wendy Derek and I had a great day exploring. Red is getting much better with his feet, he slipped once and his behind went down pretty much to the ground, but he's learning.. He was a little sore this morning on his back, but we did ride for 4.5 hours! This week is supposed to be crappy and rainy all week, so not much opportunities to ride.. I will be moving the boys to their other pastures Tues or Wed this week, I will be bummed to not see them in my pasture every day.