Tree Work

 It was still too dark at 6:45 am for Mark to walk down to the mail boxes. He went late afternoon yesterday and the mail had not yet been delivered. There was still too much ice on the driveways for him to walk in the dark. Around 7:00 am it was light enough. At 7:10 I was at the dumpster waiting for Ruth when I saw this streak in the sky.

 It was too big to be a jet and found out there was a rocket launch at 8:02 am Eastern time of the Falcon 9 Rocket from the Loring Commerce Centre in Limestone Maine.   Diane and Mike left early this morning for Gulf Shores. Cocoa, Rachel and Andrew's dog has been staying with Mike and Diane and will be picked up tonight so Diane had me let her out of the house to go on the walk. When we reached our drive Cocoa jumped up on the branch Mark took down yesterday. 

I happened to notice Irish was grazing in the field but she wasn't supposed to be in a field. Last night she was in her paddock. That meant Oksana was also out. On the way back from Joan's house we saw Oksana in the big field so both were safe. I left them out to graze until after 9:00 am then brought them both in. Their gate had been left unlatched, probably since Sunday, they had just not discovered it until this morning. Today the wood box on the front porch was filled for the coming cold. Speaking of cold it was only 15 degrees this morning. The sun came out and we had a strong south wind which brought the temperature up to 38 degrees and melted a lot of the ice off the yards but not the driveways. Those are shaded and the ice is still thick and slick. Mark came home early to work on clearing the logs off the driveway. Mackenson came over to help. Below are pictures of this big job.

Above is the stump, you can see where the wood was rotted and could not hold these huge branches up any longer. Below shows how BIG these branches are. Each one is a tree in itself.

Mark was using the skid steer to drag them off the road.

He dragged one of the smaller ones over to Joan's house but the skid steer was not able to dig into the ice and started sliding sideways making it too dangerous to take any more. He ended up dragging them to the edge of the yard to get them off the drive.

He quit at 5:00 pm and came in for supper which was taco salad. Tonight Tim Funk had the message at church on the Act's Bible study.