Letting The Light In Pt. 1

Driving back from my sister’s wedding a couple Saturdays ago, Gavin and I rolled down the road in his new truck dubbed, ‘the billy goat’ (we’re getting more hillbilly by the day) and right at the top of the hill, we saw it. Orangy-red the color of a ripening tomato peaked out, unveiling itself to the world. A spark of excitement blazed through me. “We can see it!”

While we were gone, our tree buddies, Chase & Tito got to work. We had asked a big job out of them – taking out three monstrous pine trees in the front of the house. Gavin & I drove slowly past, taking in the sight of a mini excavator chugging through the yard, branches scattered the grass like a game of pick of sticks, how ironic.

One tree down, two more to go. I craned my head up to see Tito perched at the top of the next one to drop. He smiled & waved and I couldn’t help but return the greeting & pray a very fervent prayer that everything would go okay. These trees had put down their roots merely 10 feet from the house & grew up to reach over the roof like an awning, blanketing the entire front with shade and seclusion. Gavin and I knew these had to go. They were giants waiting to fall. We wanted the opportunity to say when before it was too late.

I worked in the library, spackling the ancient walls to distract myself. Every so often there’d be a booming thud, incredible amounts of weight plummeted to the ground in parcels of tree trunk. This continued into early evening, until there was only one tree to go and that would be saved for the following day. We thanked them for their work & promised a good breakfast in the morning when they returned.

Gavin called my dad & told him how Chase was going to leave the mini excavator with us to use for the weekend. This was an incredible blessing for us so we didn’t have to haul everything down to the burn pile by hand. “Make hay while the sun’s shining,” was his reply.

I tossed those words over in my mind, tumbling them smooth until they reminded me again and again to keep going. Dark rain clouds hovered like ominous cloaked monsters on the horizon. I made it my mission to get the fire started before Gavin got back with the diesel. Again, I prayed and after awhile, a little Jesus & gasoline brought the damp pile of wood to life with glowing yellow flames, just in time as he pulled back into the driveway.

Daylight expired as it inevitably does like a fair-weather friend & we were left in the dark to continue on. I grabbed the work light & slipped Gavin’s red raincoat on to venture back out.

Alone with my thoughts under the plastic hood, patters of raindrops punctuated the quiet sound of nightfall. I resolved to get as much done as I could. I dragged the long branches over to the fire, hefting them up and on one at a time. The fresh pine needles sizzled & hissed in a cloud of white smoke before catching fire. Walking back, I could see a faint light inching slowly down the road. The teeth of the bucket held firmly to a mangled pile of branches. Gavin bumped along into the driveway, the claw released open and the contents emptied onto the ground at my feet. Over & over this was repeated until finally he shut the machine off & asked me to hop inside with him. “I’m going to teach you how to run it,” he said excitedly.

I climbed inside the small cab and squeezed onto his lap as he described what each lever & button did. I looked out to see the huge arm move up & down, the bucket opening & closing, scooping the air. The sight of this huge piece of equipment moving around like an over-sized robot made me laugh. Who else on earth was doing this on their Saturday night?

My turn to give it a try. I worked to pick up a rain soaked log. After a few attempts, the claw was in place and the grapple snapped down, crunching the wood under its pressure. The power of this machine was unbelievable. I could understand then why Gavin likes running one of these things. It’s like the little yellow plastic toy in the sandbox became colossal, roaring to a life size version of itself.

We turned & started to leave the driveway. I didn’t want to go on the road. It was now pitch black and all we had was a dim light on the front, no tail lights or reflectors to warn unsuspecting cars that we were there. I kept turning my head to check for traffic as we inched along. Gavin thought the whole thing was hilarious while I freaked out. To my relief, we entered back into the side yard & finally shut it down for the night, excited to have Chase & Tito return the next day to drop the other tree.