Trees and Plays...

I have been writing this Blog in a day-by-day style for a while now. I find as I am getting older, it is more difficult to reconstruct a week of life when I sit at my lap top on Sunday afternoon to catch up on my Blog. That is exactly what happened today. I know for a fact I filled up Monday, July 17th and Tuesday, July 18th, with good things. I know I spent part of that time crocheting on my turtle project for Christmas. I know I also spent part of that time making reservations and getting that information to Kris and Cordell who will join us in Myrtle Beach. I know I ordered a couple of books for my Kindle. But, for the life of me, I can't recall exactly what happened on which day. They were good days filled with good things.

Wednesday, July 20th, things become a little clearer. I helps to remember when I take lots of pictures. 

This day was just weird. We contracted with the man who cut the limb down from our old tree after a storm to come back in a couple of weeks and cut the tree down to a certain place on the trunk. He never called back. I called him and set up for him to come on Wednesday, July 20th. We agreed that he would come at 9am. In the course of the conversation to set this up, he first mentioned 10am then changed to 9am. I put 9am in my calendar. He did not show at 9am. I told Claude at 9:45 about the conversation and said that, for the sake of not getting riled up over this, I would wait till 10am before calling him. He was still not at our home by 10am. I called. He told me he didn't get to do his Monday job because of the rain we had and now he was a day late. I assured him I could understand and would have worked with that problem. I also assured him that every other contractor we have had has called to say they would be late or needed to reschedule. He should have done the same. He agreed and explained that he is really a one-man show right now. We agreed he would then come Tuesday morning at 9am. Okay! This mix up just tumbled our day into disarray. I had a 12:30 haircut appointment I kept. Other than that, it was just a weird day. 

I did post these pictures on our Family Facebook page of our old tree before they would cut it down. Claude already took down all the decorations from the tree in preparation for cutting it down. It is the tree with the white line painted on it. That is where Claude wanted them to cut down to. We plan to use the trunk of the tree as a yard feature of some type. So, we left some of the trunk.

Thursday, July 21st, we were up bright and early to get the tree cut down. Justin sent a note he wouldn't be there until between 9 and 10am. The boy can be taught. Then at 9:54am I received another text stating he was on his way. During this time I went to Georgetown Hospital Radiology for my annual mammogram. All was fine. When I checked in at the desk of the hospital, the clerk had this sign on her desk that I found hilarious.

The heartbreaking part of this day for Claude and me was we had planned to take our Mini's to Red Robin for lunch. With moving the tree cutting to Thursday, we could not do that. Ugh!!

After 10am, Justin and his family arrived to cut down our tree. We set up in the back yard. It took all our patio chairs to accommodate all of us. It would take the rest of this day to accomplish the cutting down. Claude and I sat outside and watched and I took pictures and video of the whole day. So fascinating to watch. 

Justin started out being the one who climbed the tree to do the cutting. Then he called PJ to come and finish up. PJ is Justin's friend who owns his own tree trimming and stump removal business. PJ is the wonderful guy who climbed the tree weeks before to cut down the broken limb. After PJ climbed the tree to do the cutting, he remained there all day long. Justin would throw him up bottles of water to keep him hydrated. He even threw him up a hamburger for lunch. I only saw them miss one time with a bottle of water. They seem to be great friends with a lot of trust and respect for each other. Justin's family were delightful to visit with. They worked hard and left our yard clean and in good shape. The fence took one beating. But Justin's brother, Darrin, took fence posts from behind the shed and put them in place of the ones that broke when a limb hit it and put new posts in their place behind the shed. This way the weathered color of the fence was the same on the part that is visible from the patio. Here are the pictures of our day and the cutting down of our tree.

A little Old Testament silliness. 

Darrin's little son, I believe his name was Christian, was given a board and a little saw. He was trying so hard to hold the board with his foot and saw. I showed him how to put it off the edge of the patio and I stood on it and he cut it just like he wanted it cut. He was very happy. 

Claude watching over his property investment!!

This is Justin in the green shirt tossing a double hamburger from McDonald's to PJ who is still in the tree. PJ caught it and really enjoyed something to eat. 

Down comes a big tree limb!!

Justin's mother found this heart made out of wire in all the rubble. She gave it to Claude and me after finding it. I believe Claude will try to get some of the rust off it for me. Then I will paint it a bright red and we'll nail it to the tree trunk. Neat artifact from our yard's history.

As the limbs and trunks of the tree hit the ground, the ground crew very quickly goes to work sawing them into manageable pieces to carry to the front yard. They filled up one truck load during the day. By the end of the day, there was another truck load of branches to be picked up. They were picked up the next morning. There was also a trailer load of trunks and big limb pieces that Justin's mother took home to burn in her stove. Claude would save two pieces about 2 inches thick each to think of something he might want to do with them. 

The very last piece of the trunk to be cut and then pulled down was very large. Claude got in the group of the men pulling to get it down. 

This is the finished truck. Our thought is to build a platform for the top and then put a feature on that. We have thought about a big red barn shaped birdhouse. Not sure if that is what we will finally do. The plan is to have this still be the fairy garden tree with its decorations back in place and a new top with some feature on it. 

Finally they cleaned everything in our yard and our neighbor, Stephanie's, yard up. The final thing was to power blow the remainder of the debris away. I do believe we had a Ghostbuster working in our backyard!!

Claude and I were surprised that we felt exhausted after they left. It was about 5:30pm when they finally left. They were taking the kids the to fair somewhere. We drove to Burger King and got something to eat. Our necks had cricks in them from looking up all day long.

Friday, July 22nd, we determined we wanted a day out and about. However, the temperature outside would be in the 90's with humidity. Not a good combination for being outside. We opted to go for a car ride. We drove to Frankfort first and had lunch at Staxx's BBQ. Then we took the back roads to Smithfield, Kentucky. There is a place there called Jericho Farms that sells wonderful ice cream. They also have beef for sale. Andie and Michael told us about it some time back. We each had a delicious ice cream in a cup while we perused the items they had for sale. I got an ice cream cone ornament and a BIG cookie. Claude purchased a brisket and two nice steaks. Then we paused for a picture of me on the tractor before getting into the Jeep and plotting our route home.

It was a lovely day out and about. 

We noted that our Dinner Plate Hibiscus in now officially in bloom. It is gorgeous. The picture of the blossom has Claude's big hand beside it to get an idea of how large these blossoms are. 

Andie, our daughter, posted this on our family Facebook page as an inspirational post for me. I do love turtles!

And, Katelyn, our first-born grandmonster sent pictures of Raelyn in the emergency room because of a bicycle accident. It really punctured her foot. No stitches, no broken bones. I won't post the picture of the puncture. I really want to remember this brave great grandmonster and her inquisitive nature which was probably very amusing to the staff at the emergency room. A whole new learning experience for this bright little nugget.

Saturday, July 23rd, we headed to Chick-filA for breakfast. We drove through to get our biscuit. Claude gave the girl the name 'Thor' for our order. This usually works for Claude. They seem to have a very hard time with the name 'Claude'. When they handed us our drinks through the window, I noted that his 'Thor' idea didn't work this time. 

We went to the church to clean the building. The families take turns doing this cleaning on a Friday evening or a Saturday morning. Our group wanted to meet on Saturday at 10am. We got the building cleaned and were home in about an hour and a half. Not bad. 

We purchased tickets to go to Great Crossing High School to see the Youth Theater of the Bluegrass perform "The Wizard of Oz". Several of the people we know from Church we in this performance. It was very well done and we enjoyed ourselves tremendously. 

These are the names of our friends that participated in this production.

In the evening, Katelyn posted this cute picture of our Potato, Joel, eating watermelon. Andie said, with him wearing his orange, he looked like a 'sweet potato'. So cute.

Sunday, July 24th, has been a very nice day. We attended Church in the morning. I substituted playing the piano for Primary. We bought lunch at Panera and brought it home to eat. Claude took his nap while I worked on my Blog. Then we watched the Tabernacle Choir program "Love Thy Neighbor". It was delightful. Very uplifting. Now for a quiet evening of plotting my week.