Cleanup after the storm

We had lots of limbs down after Sunday's storms, and a couple of big spruce trees.  Before we started cleaning up, we drove through town to see how others fared.  

Yes, there is a car under those limbs.  Sunday we noticed a big tree lying on a house, but I didn't get a picture of that.  

Those big old hollow trees just can't take the storms very well.
After our little ride around town, Cliff started the cleanup around here.  

First he dragged off the big spruce trees from behind his shop.  

The second spruce tree had a huge root that was going to plow a furrow through our yard if Cliff hooked on it and dragged it like he did the first one.

So he hooked it onto the bucket of the Mahindra, lifted it high enough so the root wasn't touching the ground, and backed up all the way through the pasture to the ditch.  

It worked like a charm, and thank goodness no furrows were plowed through the yard.


Then it was time to start piling up branches.  Cliff got the big branches, I got the smaller ones that I could handle.  He told me to put my smaller branches on top of the larger ones.  
"Shouldn't we have a trailer here to put these on?"  I asked.  

"No," he answered, "because then I'd have to unload them off the trailer at the ditch, and that wouldn't be easy.  I'll get a chain around them and drag them, and they'll be ready to shove in the ditch when I get them there."  
You may notice the slight damage to the roof of the cabin, but Cliff said that limb that fell on it probably saved it from being blown over in the 75-mile-per-hour wind.  When we set the cabin there, it was in the shade of a tree; Cliff had to give that tree quite a haircut, so there's no more shade for awhile.

I'm not sure why he switched tractors.  Maybe he just didn't want the John Deere to be jealous.  I helped by opening the pasture gate for him when he came and went, thus saving him from having to dismount a tractor, open the gate, drive the tractor through, dismount again and shut the gate, etc.  Who said I wasn't good for anything?