Meanwhile, back at the ranch. . .

Last Saturday night we were away from home for the evening. Danielle and Lee had us over for dinner, q.t. and most importantly to see Eli's nursery (precious, they are doing an amazing job). It was a laid-back night of adult conversations and a good dose of hearty laughter (our girls were hanging out with Nanny in Oxford at her house). While we were there, a really serious thunderstorm tore through dropping gumball-sized hail on our cars and adding some excitement to our evening.

We returned to our house later that evening to find that we had a little more than simple hail in our own back yard. Pulling into the driveway I noticed a huge hedge of leaves covering our yard, I pointed it out to Chad and asked him to shine his brights - There it was our 83-year old oak tree laying in our back yard. Bummer, we loved that tree!!! It was a monster - half of it fell in our yard and the other half fell in our neighbor's side yard/driveway area. (These pictures are only one side of a monster tree. This is one side of the trunk that split in two directions:

Whoa, we were dumbfounded!!!!! Our yard looked like a movie set and

Lassie hadn't even come to warn us!!! ;)

Thank God we weren't home, it didn't hit our house (Sloane's bedroom was within hitting distance if it had fallen toward the house) and only the kid's play set and 3 Leeland trees were damaged.

We were so grateful to have a pack of army ants come over on Sunday afternoon and work their butt's off getting the tree cut and cut and cut some more, hauling limb debris and raking all of the stray leaves. They showed up with manual-labor mentalities in 97-degree heat. I'll never forget Steve (Gina's husband) showing up with his chainsaw, jumping on the biggest part of the split trunk and going to town with his saw, he was ON IT and couldn't have been more great!!!

By Sunday evening we had a cleared yard again. Gratitude upon gratitude to Steve Merritt, Zach May, Robert (my brother), Caleb (my nephew), Lee Copeland for helping Sunday and Clint Brooks who came on Tuesday night to work and cut again with Chad!!!! Anyone need some firewood for the winter?? ;o)