lumber and more lumber

In our first year in our home, Rodney dragged a Shagbark Hickory tree over to be lumbered. Since then, he had Lyme disease, and we've had two babies. Life had been too busy for lumbering out the tree. On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, we finally had the right day to tackle those trees and make good on the hard work of hauling them out of the woods onto the pasture.

Rodney's mom and dad came down to help - Morry with the manual labor and Angie with the littles in my life that keep me very busy. Abigail spent the entire six hour project outside with Daddy and Grandpa. Hannah lasted a couple of hours but settled on spending the rest of the time reading with Grandma inside.

The man who we hired to lumber out the trees was a retired CAT engineer and University of Illinois alumni, so aside from the joy of using expensive machinery to cut up a tree, there wasn't a lack of good conversation down on the field.

It was  a long afternoon of work and now my basement smells like a lumber yard, where the wood is drying. Perhaps when life settles down a little bit more, Rodney will have time to make some nice bookshelves or even a second bunk bed. But for now, my basement will double as a lumberyard.