So on this service project, we went to the Millar ranch to chop up a fallen oak tree into firewood, a huge Oak tree that had fallen down a previous year. It was very dry, and fireplace ready to burn. So everybody in our team, young and old, participated. We had the adults wielding the chainsaws on all of the logs. We got the youth involved to carry those large blocks to the wood splitter machine. After that, they would carry the smaller firewood to the pickup trucks and help load and stack it there for our long trip to the destination in North Fork.
We kept everything safe with the machinery, as they worked really hard. The wood was very heavy. Jerry Cobb and Kevin were on the chainsaw duty, and Greg was on the wood splitter duty. What fantastic tools to prepare the wood.
As each of our youth hauled the larger heavy pieces over to the wood chopper, Greg would then chop it into two pieces, maybe four, and they would take the fireplace ready blocks to the trucks.
What we're going to use this wood for is, a certain widow in our ward who had a tree that fell this year, and it got chopped it up, but it was green wood and wouldn't burn. Winter was coming even already here, so we had an urgent project. It was the beginning of December. And so they asked if we could help. So we thought, yeah we can as a team, so we got the youth involved who did most all of the hard work because a lot of us old men don't have very good backs (or knees).
Well, they do! And it showed. We all worked as a team together. It was just great.
We were so glad to have the youth helping, they're strong and they're enthusiastic. They have and had great attitudes! and they try so hard to do the right thing and they know they're helping someone in need and doing so with friends makes it even better!
So now we're on our way, leaving the Millar Ranch, and on our way to the destination at the widow's house. Here we are, we have arrived. So it was a very steep narrow driveway going down to the house. We took all three trucks very slowly, and we got down there. We started emptying the trucks, one at a time, everybody still in very good spirits. Everybody's happy such, great attitudes, very much a joy to work with them. No complaints and we hadn’t even eaten yet.
So you can see the woodshed was empty and here we are, coming to fill it up with a cord of wood. Should be good for the winter.
I'm so proud of our youth. They did great. Afterwards we took them out to lunch at the local pizza place, The Pizza Factory in North Fork.
Jerry ordered ahead and it was ready when we got there. Thanks Jerry for the forethought!
And it was a delicious lunch. Great job, everybody. I wish we could've had more youth there, but this was a quick call to duty and we had to assemble a team fast and do this on an off day, a Saturday. Next time we'll get more youth involved because it's really is a lot of fun. Many of our youth got to be with each other, helping serving, and it's as much of a social event as it is a spiritual and a physically demanding event.
Bishop Johnson