Sorry for the long absence. We've had a few things going on here the last couple of weeks and blogging had to take a back seat.

I was bound and determined to update this over the weekend but a storm blew up and lightning knocked out our telephone and internet. It was 3 or 4 days before they could get out to fix it. We don't have television ( we do but not one station comes in) and we really haven't missed it but no internet is the pits!

Anyway, here's what's been going on.

Our barn is in dire need of repair but there was no point fixing it until we had removed a very large White Pine tree that was threatening to fall on it! It was so close that even felling the tree could wipe out the barn! So, for these kinds of situations, around here you call the expert, Craig!

Craig came out and assessed everything. He was pretty sure he could drop the tree without demolishing the barn but couldn't guarantee that the back corner wouldn't be knocked out. We were all biting our nails! Here are the pictures of the big event.

The roots from this tree are what pushed the barn off it's foundation.  

In order to save the corner of the barn Craig chained the tree to others further up the hill.  

Starting to go. I wish I could include the sound effects! 

Will it hit the barn? 

Craig's daughter running to see that her Dad's ok! 

That's one big tree! 

Ken, Josh and our neighbor Fred.

Everyone's alive and the barn's still standing! Not only that but Craig say's there's over 1000 board feet of lumber in this tree. Enough to re-side the most of the barn once it's been stabalized! Actually, he came back a few days later and dropped the other white pine that was standing to the left of this one. It was also a threat to the barn but dropping it was much more straightforward. The past week was spent cleaning up the limbs and branches. We have some huge brush piles to burn. The next step is to bring in a loader to pull out the trunks and place them ready for Mr. Sykes to bring in his portable saw mill. Ken and I and probably Craig will help him cut the trunks into 10 and 12 foot boards. We should have a lot left over for an addition to the barn and a workshop.

Treasure!

Our afternoon of metal detecting in England turned up nothing of any significance but here are a few things I've found around the yard here. Obviously another little boy lived here at one time. We've since found about 5 more of these little cars and trucks. The grey globs in the center and right registered as silver on the meter. Ken thinks it's silver solder. One piece was found in front of the house by the porch, the other was found in the stream!