We Need a Shelter

So why is my husband lying on the ground like he’s about to die?

Well, it started out as such a simple idea. We want to camp in the clearing in the middle of our property, but we need a shelter for our pop up camper (it’s kind of old).   A metal pole barn would be just perfect, but it would cost too much money.

My husband said we don’t need a metal pole barn!  I can make a pole barn out of our own trees!  Why would anyone do anything else when there were thousands of trees around us we could use?

Well, the first thing you have to do is cut down some trees.  We guessed about 6 trees would do it.  One would think that being surrounded by trees, we could find 6 to cut. 

But no. 

This one was too big around.  This one would probably fall against this other really nice tree and scar it.  We should keep this tree because it is so beautiful.  This tree is too small…….

I’m not sure we can be tree farmers if we are afraid of cutting down trees.

‘We’, of course, being the colloquial ‘we’.   As in, just about every tree seemed fine to me to cut down.

He finally found one that would be all right to cut down.  It was about 65 feet high and 20 yards away from our driveway.  He cut it down no problem, and then into sections.  The first section was about 13 feet long.

Now.  Moving this section seemed like no big deal.  It's just part of a tree after all.  But when he went to lift it, it weighed about 350 pounds.

I told him to leave it.  We could find something closer to cut down.  I said this knowing it would take another 2 hours to find another appropriate tree.  I am a good wife.

But no.  My 54 year old I-think-I’m-still-twenty husband slowly dragged it through the brambles to our truck and got it in the bed.

Then went back for the next 11 foot section and loaded it onto the truck.

Being somewhat crippled, all I could do is watch and cheer him on.

And of course take pictures.

We have 5 more trees to cut down and move to the middle of our property.  This shelter is going to take a while.  We’ll get the rest on our next visit.