February 18 – “Back Yard Strongman”

The day began quiet enough.  I went to the school to meet with a lady from Houston who wants to bring some families down to help do some work around Seaside.  She and her husband have come to Seaside for years when they are at their Jamaica Beach house.  Great family.  Their children behave perfectly in church.  Not a sound.  They all look sharp all the time.  And they are a lot of fun to be around.  Their church small group in Houston wanted to know everything I could think of that might need to be done.  They were particularly interested in the existing building, but she wanted a tour of the new building as well.  She is determined to get us some new blinds.  They even asked about doing some landscaping.  She is supposed to come back tomorrow and take some pictures.  The plan is for them to drive down on some Sundays, worship with us, and do some work in the afternoon.   When I got home I found out that Nathan was coming over to finish cutting down the dead magnolia tree in the back yard.  He trimmed some branches awhile back, but stopped when he felt insecure up in the tree.  Today he brought his harness.  And he was determined to get that thing down.  He got the chain saw out and we gassed it up and oiled it up and headed for the back yard.  I grabbed the ladder to give him a bit of a boost.  He harnessed up and scrambled into the tree with the chain saw tied to his belt.  He cut off four or five pretty big branches up there.  One of them smacked into the deck on the way down.  Didn't seem to do any damage, though.  Then he tied a rope to the very top section and started his cut.  I was down in the yard with the other end of the rope, pulling it away from the deck.  Didn't take long before it snapped loose and crashed to the ground.  Nathan breathed a sigh of relief.  For him that was the worst part of the whole ordeal.  At least the scariest.  He could just picture himself riding to the ground on said treetop.  But he held on.    Then came the backyard strong man portion of the afternoon – cutting down the main trunk of the tree.  He carefully figured where the angle cut needed to be and where the corresponding straight cut would have to go.  He fired up the chain saw and let 'er rip.  And whenever Chris went back inside, I got a turn at the chain saw as well.  I even picked up the ax one time, but Nathan wouldn't go that far.  He refused my good intentions to hack at the tree.  Sad it wouldn't be good for my back.  He was right.  But my elbow already hurt, so I figured it wouldn't make that much difference.  To make a long afternoon into a short story, that tree didn't want to fall.  We got the cuts made, and every law of gravity said the tree should fall, but it steadfastly refused.  Nathan finally climbed back into the tree and tied our rope at the new top.  Then we would saw awhile, chop awhile, and pull and push awhile.  We didn't thnk the tree would ever give up and fall.  Finally, though, when I was on rope pull duty and he was pushing, we heard a crack.  That was it.  A few more good tugs and it eased toward me just a bit.  And stopped.  It was at an unusual angle of descent, but it stopped.  That didn't stop us, though.  I tugged and Nathan pushed until finally, with sheer brute force, we got the tree down.  Nathan immediately said, "We can cut it up another day, right?"  He had to be at work tonight at 6:30, and it was around 4.  Needless  to say, after cleaning the tools that project was over.   Romans 13:11 says, "And do this, understanding the present time. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed."   Father, thank you for showing that you are still at work around Seaside.  Amen.