Happy Independence Day!

A little late, but we finally got around to sending out holiday photo cards. The kids and I spent the day at Crown Point and on the Columbia River Historic Highway, taking tons of photos and hoping that some of them would turn out. We really love the card that my sister Rita created for us. Oh, I took so many photos that day, and of course, they couldn't all make it into the card. I'll have to dig them up to show you some more of my favorites, someday, hopefully... someday soon.

Happy Independence Day from the Lundby's!

Branches, branches and more branches...

Many trips walking across the yard while dragging branches, many trips with the lawn mower and wagon, many trips with our neighbors pick-up truck and several swoops with our neighbor's tractor have all led to this monstrosity sitting in our front yard. We burned a lot of the branches and now we're waiting for the local Conservation District to come and chip the rest of it up.

Here's more residue from the timber project, day one and day two.

We got most of the branches cleaned up, but we still have a few random huge chunks of tree lying around, some might call them logs. :) 

The other day, Elena came running into the house and said, "Mommy, Deacon's on top of the pile of branches!" I shuddered... probably muttered an "oh mercy", took a reluctant look and then I grabbed the camera as this would be the one and only time such an act was committed.

And then of course, she wanted to climb it too...

And climb she did.

The kids spent many hours helping us make this pile, so it seemed fitting that they wanted to conquer it!

Our pile of branches has grown since we took these pictures. We had branches from three 30+ year old evergreens and then we added branches from three 10+ year old evergreens, a handful of birch trees and various branches that our neighbor has added. The pile is huge!

So, now you know what the neighbors see when they drive by, and yep we'll put another call in tomorrow to see when they are coming to remove the pile. :)

Thanks for stopping by the Lundby Hive!

Deacon's birthday!

Happy 9th birthday Deacon! And thanks for giving us an excuse to spend the day at the pool with friends, eat brownies and ice cream and celebrate you!
We'll have another party later, cuz well, we're kind of up to our eyeballs in branches!

Timber! Day Two!

This is our second day of "Project Timber" at the Lundby Hive. To see photos from day 1, click here.

 We had a couple of spectators getting ready to see the show.

 The cutting has begun.

Notice the trailer at the bottom right of the photo. 

 The tree is supposed to fall this way, it's even cabled to a pick-up behind me.

But... uh, it went this way and landed on top of our friends trailer... oops! Notice the pick-up on the right, yeah that's where it was supposed to go.

 Moving on... to the next trunk of the same tree.

 I decided to get a different view for this trunk.

 And there she goes...

 Whew! At least it landed where it was supposed to.

 Getting ready to take the last tree down.

 It's a pretty big one.

 They cabled it to the blue truck in the field.

One last look before it comes down.  

It came down with a big THUD! 

These two guys were quick with the saw, they trimmed those branches in no time, which created a lot of work for the kids and I... more about that later.

It was an exciting day at the Lundby household. Yet it was a comforting day. It brought me back to harvest days growing up as a child in Minnesota. I always wanted to stay home from school to "help" mom on the day that it was our turn to have the crew help on our farm. All of my uncles would come over and spend the day helping my dad and brothers with the harvest. We would watch for all of the tractors coming to the yard as that would signal that they were ready to take a break. Mom would prepare a huge meal and all of the guys would come in for dinner, they'd eat quickly and then return to the fields. It was a sense of family and community that I was reminded of today when friends, neighbors and a man we had just met, all volunteered to come and help Erik with the timber project. I felt like I had my own little harvest day in Mill A.

We really want to thank all the workers that came and volunteered their time, thank you for all of your hard work, thank you for blessing our family with the gift of community and a sense of family, it means more than you would ever know.

Last day of school, 2011!

The kids had a great year at school and they had a great time at Field Day! It was a great way to end the year, hope next year is just as grand!

Timber! Day One!

The creative juices are flowing as the "remodeling addiction" has once again surfaced at the Lundby Hive. To keep those juices flowing, we have to re-arrange the backyard a bit.

And these two trunks from a cluster of cedar trees needed to come down.

They used to be in the middle of these two huge trees.

Erik's sizing up the next trunk, which way is it leaning, which one should come down next, etc.

Erik and Zack pulling on the rope that's tied to the tree. I have to admit, I got in on the action on pulling one of the trunks down, and it was pretty fun!

Our ever reliable-good-neighbor Rick came over and helped out too.

And crash! That's the end of that tree! Well, except for all of the branches that need to be cleaned up!

The kids and I made many trips with the lawn mower that day, bringing branches to the front yard. One of us even perfected the act of "reading and driving the lawn mower" at the same time. No photo evidence, just an image engrained in my brain forever!