Muscles vs. Machines

Remember all of those trees we cut down? Besides un-housing a squirrel family we created a lot (LOT) of work for ourselves. The pear trees were cake, small and un-threatening. The chinese elm was ginormous. (I really didn't think it would take that as a word...wow).

Three weekends later we got it all cut down and cut up. (yes, down and up...?!?) But, lest we anger our neighbors, we had to get all of the wood stacked up, given away and hauled off. The trunk was HUGE. And HEAVY.

Let's try to describe how heavy...

Ummmm.

Perhaps the weight of a baby elephant on steroids?

Seriously, we grunted and heaved, we levered and pulled, we wrenched and pushed. Then we almost got it tipped onto the trailer. 

But then, we needed to get it to the middle of the trailer, because the two of us jumping couldn't get the other end of the trailer down to attach to the hitch. 

So we grunted and heaved, we levered and pulled, we wrenched and pushed. Then we realized we might be able to attach a tow rope to the suburban and use that. Which worked great. Well, a little too great because it pulled a few too many inches and ended up on the other end of the trailer. Now we couldn't get that end up to attach to the trailer.

So, we reattached the tow rope to try to finagle the trunk back to the middle, a very precarious position that apparently was about a millimeter wide.

And we finally got it. After we tore up the tow rope and wore ourselves out.

Then we loaded up the trailer with the rest of the tree. I don't think a chunk of that tree weighed less than 50 pounds. And that was cut apart.

Then we hauled it to the dump. Want to know how much the load weighed?

1700 pounds.

I wasn't kidding about the baby elephant on steroids.

And we were stuck trying to figure out how to get it all back off the stinking trailer.

Except that at the dump they have toys. Like these.

And they lift things, like the trunk.

And smash things, like this.

And make it look like cake.

I am so thankful for modern machines. And gloves. And cold water. And blisters that go away eventually. And neighbors that probably appreciate our hard work...