Our favorite tree fell during hurricane Irene.

It wiped out a fence, a swing, a section of walkway, and our utility trailer.

It's hard to tell, but there's a trailer under there...

Hmmm, here it is...

Welcome to Andie and Mike's tree trimming 101. With a little elbow grease, a chainsaw, a jeep, and a couple of weekends, we stood the tree back up.

The first step is to gitcha a bigol' chainsaw.

If yer don got no bigol' chainsaw, got down to the Wal-Mart and gitcha one of these here thirty-five dollar 'lectric onez.

Yer jez gonna tear it to hell anyway, so don't go spending a buncha money on it.

Count yer fingers before and after each day's work, and make sure you finish with the same number you started with.

Now go on n'climb yer butt on up and start hacking on it. Don't cut yer 'lectric cord.

Keep hackin' on it. Start at the top and git'er down to a reasonable size.

If you leave a tall section, you can tie you a roap to the top. Tie the other end to yer John Deer. If ya ain't gotcha no John Deer, a Jeep will do.

The local folk tell us it'll grow back after a trimmin' like this.

If you leave a few long logs layin' around, you can use 'em to straighten yer trailer.

A few tugs with these sticks and some beatin' with a hammer straightened 'er back up. It still goes down the road a little dog-legged but we used it this weekend to haul some concrete for our next project.