Thank You for Not Letting Our House Burn Down

A couple of weeks ago, my husband and I were enjoying a nice quiet Friday night at home...when there was a knock at the door. It was our awesome neighbor from across the street.
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[To truly understand his awesomeness, you have to know that he is also the same guy that courageously mounts a 4-wheeler plow all winter and clears our driveway...we like him very much!]
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With no snow yet, this visit meant something else entirely.

As I held our eager greeter dog back, he informed us that we might want to take a look at the tree out front.

Holy cow, you should have seen it!! The power lines touching the tree were causing fiery ash to dance all around that windy night!

We thanked our awesome neighbor and my husband called the power company. Eventually one truck showed up and sat out front. We received a call from the power company advising us to stay inside...reason - the situation out front was pretty bad. With a finger on speed dial to the fire department, my husband impatiently waited for something to be done.

Finally one of those large power company bucket trucks arrived. One brave man was lifted into the tree with a chainsaw and began cutting down the branches (which were now on fire). The fire had made its way into one of the large trunk parts of the tree. What a sight! There was literally a campfire coming from the center of our tree!!!

The chainsaw cut through section after section until they found the bottom of the fire pit. The men then explained that due to the amount of voltage running through the tree (and thus our lawn), we could have been electrocuted if we had walked up too close! Phew!!

The power company guys packed up and left the burning logs on our lawn?!?! What the heck?!?! The last thing they said before leaving was to haul out our garden hose and put the fire out...nice. I managed to grab our hose from the shed and do a lousy job of hooking it up. Then my fearless gimpy/one armed husband finished the job and saved the day!!

He doused the grounded campfire logs

and the few embers still in the tree.

If it was not for our awesome neighbor's help that night, who knows how this could have ended up?? We very well could have gone to bed only to be awaken with our house on fire!!

How do you thank someone for preventing your house from burning down? One thing I do know [from his help in the winter] is that he likes cookies....so I made him these really BIG ones.

Thank you awesome neighbor!