Our friend Ted Frazer came over on Sunday and cut down our dead tree. It seems it was a Silver Maple. Marie says that it died because of a certain bug. She found pieces of dead bugs after the tree was cut. We are still trying to figure out what bug it was. I think the tree was old. I also thought that Ted was going to shimmy up the tree with a rope tied through his belt loop and a chainsaw between his teeth. Nope. Ted busted out the harness and loads of climbing expertise. He even used a block & tackle and a cambium saver. As Ted tied ropes around the limbs, Jen and I would pull them down as he cut. When the big limbs hit the ground Jen and I would untie the rope, buck up the limb and haul it off. Things were going great. Then I decided to climb a ladder that was on unstable ice. I ended up falling off of the top wrung and hitting my face on the ice. I spent the rest of the day and all day Monday laying on the couch with my eye swollen shut. Ted took a picture of my eye. As I write this I remember Jen walking over to the ladder and saying, "let me hold that." I also remember me saying, "Nah, I'll be fine." I like the picture of Ted when he is barely off the ground. He said, "geez, at least wait until I am in the tree." I also like the one where Ted has his head turned while running the saw. It was a great day. The boys were very impressed with everything going on. Marie made a wonderful soup and Jen made one of her grandmother's cakes. The boys and I went out on Tuesday and made a fort in the pile of tree. This weekend I am going to take the saw to it, I can't wait.
Here are a few shots of our living room and dining room. The sun was really look'in nice today so Marie snapped a few photos. The new windows await. They are on our front porch. I have a good feeling that I am going to be throw'in some sawdust around while installing these windows. We are all soaking up the clean and "not in construction mode" house. But then we walk out the front door and say "yup" there is the work. Also, the ground outside is a great muck of a mix between mud, ice & snow. As there will be a lot of foot work outside of the window we are sort of waiting for that to even out as well. If you look closely you can see that we still need to put in the quarter round moulding between the floor and the "mop" board. Earl called it the mop board. I remember the windows as being the colonial style. 
