A few months after Toby and I moved into our house on Dollie Street, Toby decided that we should cut down all the pine trees in the yard. We had a company come in an cut most of the pine, but there were a few of them they didn’t want to mess with or that were not in a area they could get their machinery to easily. Being the handy folks we are, we thought we could easily handle the few smaller trees. Overall, the project went smoothly. We were tired and cranky and had a lot of brush to clean up, but our yard was beginning to take shape.

There was one really tall skinny pine in the back yard. Toby and I looked at it and debated whether or not it was going to fall toward the house. My thoughts were it would hit the house and we should just leave it alone until we could use a winch to pull it. Toby decided it would miss the house. He asked me to get on the house side of the tree and push away from the house while he cut a wedge shape into the side so it would fall down hill.

Toby began cutting while I was pushing this 60′ tall tree with all my might. The entire time he’s cutting I am mouthing about how insane this was because this tree was going to hit the house. Suddenly, Toby yells, “Every man for himself” and takes off running! Within a few seconds, I too started running. The tree was falling toward the house. Luckily, it hit the old deck and not the house.

Every man for himself, indeed.