Sam & Steve went to Lake Jackson, TX which is just west of Galvasten Island and north of Freeport (where Ike hit land) to help clear debris (trees...lots of trees) from homes in the area. We received and email from our Stake President requesting volunteers. It was a group effort with men from 5 different Stakes. There were 11 men (including Sam and another YM) from our ward. They left the house at 3:45 am this morning and returned home around 9:00pm. Steve was running a chain saw and Sam was stacking the cut up wood. They ran into some spiders (some they had never seen anything like it before) and only one cotton mouth snake. Put some "boys" in close proximity to a snake...and what do they do...they play with it! Steve, yes my husband, got a stick...yes, a stick, to try and catch it....yes, I said catch it--so they could kill it. He said his stick was at least 3 times as long as the snake so there was no worries. He didn't have any luck so Bro. Jackson (Dave) picked up another piece of wood probably about 1/2 as long as the snake (not a good idea) and tried to beat it to death. Luckily, the snake didn't want to play or kill anyone and kept trying to get away and finally did. The men decided that they had cut up enough wood from that tree and moved on to the next tree. There were no injuries to report except for Sam's unfortuanate mishap with Poison Ivy...or Sumac or something with leaflets 3 that he should have let be!
These trees are huge and probably pretty old. The problem is that the root system is not very strong because the roots don't have to go far to find water (Lake Jackson is probably sea level or pretty close) and so they don't develop deep roots. Along comes Hurricane Ike and pushed them over.
Bro. Mark Kuene from our ward. (12 ft off the ground, standing on 2 trunks of the same tree he was attempting to cut down, that had fallen on top of the garage---note the corner of the roof) This is what Steve was doing all day but he was the one with the camera so no pictures of him. He actually climbed up on a roof. Those of you who don't know Steve is afraid of heights. I can't even get him to climb on the roof to put Christmas lights up. But in front of other men....I guess it is a man thing...men with power tools!
I don't know...what do you think we should do? The men are trying to figure out how to get the chain saw (small green object to left of log) "unstuck" from the log. This happens to be the chain saw that Steve was operating. First, they hooked a chain to the log and pulled with the tractor...they broke part of the tractor so then they decided to just ram it (the log) with the tractor enough times until they broke the log and it released the chain saw...Victory! Can you say "male bonding."
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