Suburban chainsaw fun!

For some time we've been meaning to trim a branch from this beautiful old maple, because the branch spreads out over our neighbor's driveway and we're afraid that a snowstorm will take it down right onto her car. Not so good. We're also having the house painted (Van Courtland Blue from Benjamin Moore, for those who keep track of these sorts of things) and the painters are allegedly coming any! week! now! so it seemed like a good time to trim other branches that were touching the house and might get in the way of the painters. And once you head down that path... so Mike got the chainsaw, climbed the tree, tried with minimal success to teach me how to start the thing, finally had to start it himself while perched in the tree, and took the branch right off. We'd had the foresight to ask the neighbor to move her car, and she seemed only slightly irritated by that. When the branch came down, we could see that it was starting to rot inside and might well have come down under the weight of snow this winter. Peter was so impressed by the sound of the chainsaw that he dashed inside to get his hardhat. He and Grace sang a few rousing rounds of the Bob the Builder song (inspired by the hardhad) while they helped us pick up the debris.