Since my last post when I shared our success at getting a loan modification, some plans have changed. Instead of figuring out where to move when we sold our house, now my husband and I are going to have a foreign exchange student stay in one of the spare bedrooms upstairs. The program is through Whittier College, and since we live about 2 blocks away, the person running the program was very excited to have us on board. So while we are waiting for our first boarder, there are a few things around the house that we decided to do, since we will be here a while longer (the good Lord willing).
One of those was to trim our 75 foot tall, 100 year-old pecan tree in the back yard. It's been needing a good thinning-out for quite a while, so now seemed like the time. My husband hired some guys to do it, and when they arrived I kind of laughed to myself. The "climber", for want of a better word, was about 65 years old, 5'5" tall, and must have weighed 150 soaking wet. He threw his big orange rope up into the branches, clipped a chainsaw to a hook on his belt, and proceeded to shimmy up the tree.
I must admit that I was afraid for him - it's a BIG tree! He wore a safety harness, but as far as I was concerned he was cheating death every step he took. He would stop at a spot, unhook the chainsaw, start it up and proceed to trim away certain branches (I told him to thin the tree, not top it). He did this numerous times, quickly and with much agility. His teenage son was on the ground to fill up the chainsaw when the gas got low, and I asked him if his father had ever fallen. He said no, but his uncle had taken a dive facefirst into some concrete years ago. And another relative had sawn off his pinky just last month.
I prayed that the man would not fall; I prayed that my homeowner's insurance had a high limit; and I prayed that I would have faith like that little man climbing around my tree.
Live To Give
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