Thursday-Mar. 10th

Thursday-Mar. 10^th  -   What an exciting day we have had today.  First the tree trimmers came and then we butchered a pig!

I don't know how to begin to describe the crew which came to trim the huge tree here at the house that was over the power lines.  Remember they have no bucket truck, no chain saw, only a short ladder, 1 ax, and machetes.  There were six men to trim and 3 men carrying clipboards watching.  Tim loaned them his extension ladder (none knew how to extend it) and a rope and his helper, John.  One man and John climbed the tree which was quite tall, sat on the limb and began to cut away with the ax.  When the largest limb fell (not the one he was sitting on) it caught in the power lines.  Now they have a real problem.  How will they dislodge the limb?  They can't reach it from the ground nor from above where the man is still sitting.  The Tanzanian engineering kicked in.  I could tell it was John's idea and that is when he went to get the rope.  The rope was thrown over the big limb in the tree.  Then somehow they managed to loop it around the limb on the power lines, now the men on the ground began to pull on the rope to hoist the limb off the wires.  It worked well and no one got hurt.  Faye got some good pictures.   It was like watching a 3-ring circus!

About 1:00 p.m. John Tuff and Sam, (from Ireland) came in with a pig that they had killed at the farm.  This was all planned of course.  On a table set up in the back yard the pig was butchered.  John Tuff has done this before so he knew what he was going.  Some of the meat was ground for sausage and I think that a large pork roast is on the menu for tomorrow.  It all depends on the electric being on.

The power was off from 8:00 a.m. to 2 p.m.  Lunch and supper were prepared on the 1 burner propane heater.  Kim certainly knows how to make do and everyone loves her cooking.

Power is still on at 7:00 p.m. and we are hoping that it will stay on all night!