This July 4th we packed up the car and headed out to a BBQ a few towns east of us. We had only gotten about 10 minutes into the journey when one of our neighbors called us. She said a massive tree in our yard had fallen and was completely blocking the road. The road is a cul-de-sac and everyone on the street was stranded! I asked her if our neighbor with the chainsaw was home and she promised to check.

By the time we’d turned around and gotten back the tree was swarming with neighbors. Chainsaw neighbor was just arriving but other had already gone to town on the smaller branches with pruning shears and bolt cutters. We changed our clothes and went to work with them. The neighborhood swarmed the tree like ants and it was cleared much faster than I could have imagined possible.

In gratitude we had them over the house and cleared out the beer/wine/cider fridge and scrounged up snacks for them. What we do without our good neighbors?