Choppin' Wood (Not Broccoli)

We live in the woods. I guess this is a rather blatant fact that we somehow overlooked when we purchased our humble abode. This reality was made quite clear this fall when approximately 245 bushels of leaves fell onto our version of a lawn. Speaking of the lawn, we should have also recognized the relative lack of grass where one might expect to find those thin green blades. On the one hand it makes mowing quite simple. On the other, it makes playing bocce difficult. We decided that in order to theoretically play bocce we would need a lawn. Lawns need sunlight. We had very little, due in large part to the varieties of deciduous trees canvasing our canopy. Flora-related sacrifices had to made.

It so happens that Michael went to high school with someone who would go on to attend Paul Smith's College, a school in upstate New York that is renowned for graduating students who are trained in the art of felling trees. We consulted with Robert (formally known as Burt) and decided upon a trio of trees that would have to be felled. Of course, the week before he was to complete this mission, the largest tree - assuredly in protest of its sentence, dropped a rather large limb upon the power line that supplies our home with wonderful electricity. That ordeal left us without power for a couple days and led to some heated discussions with Connecticut Light and Power.

Burt came to the rescue. He expertly landed our trees, along with a couple dozen smaller ones, in a matter of hours. We were left with a large quantity of wood on our lawn and no means by which to reduce the severed sections of tree trunk to pieces that would fit into our wood-burning stove next year. Luckily, our fathers both possesed chainsaws and both came to assist in the sizing of our soon-to-be fuel. More pictures to come, but my favorite is Erika learning the art of axe-swinging - a skill that is likely taught at the aforementioned Paul Smith's College but one that Erika is still working on honing: