"Clark, Audrey's frozen from the waist down." "That's all part of the experience, honey."

In December, Josh started a huge tree-cutting project along the 9th fairway at the Salmon Valley Golf Course (where he works). He decided that over Christmas Break, he would have the boys help him with the project. There's a long line of aging willow trees that needed thinning and removal, and he thought he'd have the boys help carry the branches that he'd cut to the big burn pile. The older 3 boys helped Josh with his work project for 3 long (to them) days.

 

 

 While he and the boys were at work, I was at home with Kanyon working on indoor projects. But two of the days, I went into town in the afternoon to check their progress while I was doing errands. One day, they'd been playing by the frozen shallow creek, and the ice had cracked, and Micah had fallen in. He was freezing! Josh took him down to his shop to warm up for a while as he sharpened his chainsaw, and he was able to dry his clothes and boots. The boys were eager to tell me all about it when I visited them!

Most of the trees that Josh cut were sooo old, that they were completely hollow on the inside, like this one:

 He used his chainsaw a lot to cut down big branches, and overgrown limbs. He also used it to cut around bases of complete trunks that needed to be removed.

For some of the thicker, heavier trees that he was unable to cut completely through with his chainsaw, he pushed over with his tractor after weakening them around the base with cuts.

And for some of the taller trees, he used the long-arm chainsaw to cut down branches that he couldn't reach. He's very daring here...

 

Josh worked on this project for weeks, and when he was all done cutting branches, there was a massive pile of branches and trunks to burn.

 

When the trunks were laying on their side, some of them were taller than Josh, who is over 6 feet!

 

He tended to the fire for one complete day, and the fire continued to burn for a couple days thereafter. Burn, baby, burn!

Although the boys were never pleased when they found out they had to go help Josh at work with the tree-cutting project, it was so good for them to be out of the house and productive! They were great little workers, and Josh was grateful for their assistance. As parents, we use the fun Christmas Break to make our kids work, too!!!