IF YOU GIVE A GUY A CHAINSAW, THIS...
BECOMES THIS.
OK, quick detour...call me strange, I'm blogging when I should be working on my new novel and I'm eating an ice cream cone minus the ice cream. I love the taste of a plain waffle cone, it's kinda like a burned krumkake (crumbly traditional Norwegian dessert we make at Christmas). But that isn't the real reason for my post. My real reason is that about a month ago, when we did a small group picnic at Fellows Lake, we had designated a day for small group to come over here and help us clean up all those monstrous trees that had been knocked down in order to clear a spot for the house.
So last Saturday, 8:00, here comes the E's van, Uriah M's truck, and the S's van trundling down our driveway, trailers in tow. I wasn't exactly the most "bright-eyed and bushy-tailed" (to quote Mary P) b/c I'd been stupid and stayed up really late the night before. Oh well...within fifteen minutes of their arrival, the dads and Luke got their chainsaws up and running...
They zipped through the junk in the middle of our circle drive and down the right side of the house (if you're facing the driveway from our front porch). That left Krystina E, Josh, Joe M, Wyatt M, Caulen L, and me to pick up branches for a burn pile and logs for our firewood piles. Mom came out sometime later to begin burning and Hannah came out with the camera as the "official photographer".
So, I managed to be my usual klutzy self and trip all over everything, prompting the guys to start calling any trip by any person "a Heather". "Oh, you just did a Heather!" Thanks, boys! Joe turned the best one, though. He jumped on a rock that looked solid, and wouldn't you know it was the ONLY one in the ENTIRE woods that completely rolled over. :0) Somehow none of us got seriously hurt. I was very surprised. We had minor injuries...bruises and bumps and smashed fingers and the like, but nothing major.
I earned a new nickname from Luke and Wyatt--Pint-sized Goliath. Oh yeah!
Umm...we forgot about the half-burned logs below the septic field, so when we went to pick all that up...yeah. We looked like we'd been through a fire after we were done. Soot was all over our clothes, in my hair, on every exposed bit of skin...yup! I have a sore shoulder still from a branch coming down on it...thanks to a certain fifteen-year-old who I won't mention his name...*clears throat*... Unfortunately Mom didn't get a picture b/c when we came in to lunch, we all scrubbed it off as quickly as we could. But right after lunch we had to go finish up down there, and by that time it was slightly windy, but pretty hot, and it's dusty down there...so we ended up with soot and dirt sticking to us! "Washable tan" as Togo (Greg T) says.
Mom is a pyromaniac...I warned them but no one would believe me until Jim W saw her heading out ot one of the brushpiles, matches and gasoline in tow. "You use GAS?!?!" he said. Of course she does...the bigger the whoosh the better. Actually, that's Josh. The two fires Mom lit didn't whoosh. But when I saw how much gas Josh was putting on the one he lit, I stepped behind Wyatt. When he touched it off, it made the ground shake and exploded bits of leaves and sticks out from underneath the brush! :0) I think Dad's fire took the prize for the most explosive, though. He lit it about twenty feet off our back deck, and we felt it all the way down below the septic field.
This is taking a break right before supper, from left Wyatt, Uriah, and Jim.
Luke and I fell asleep while waiting for supper, leaning against the dog kennel.
Oh yeah and once the younger girls showed up, Hannah, Alex, Shelby, Amanda, and Sarah, pulled a good prank on me. They effectively gave a sequel to the prank war Hannah and I started several weeks ago, that I'd thought I'd won. Maybe I should post the story I wrote about that...hmmm. That would be kinda fun. Actually I've posted it on Apricotpie, it's "The Great Prankster War" so if you want to check it out, go here.
Anyway, I won't leave you in suspense on what the girls did to me. They hid in my room, and when I came in, chucked cupfuls of shredded paper at me! :0) It was actually really funny, and after that they swept my room for me.
All in all it was a great day, we got a lot of work done along with being able to hang out together. Thanks everyone who came to help us work!!!!!
