Pray, “Saint Michael the Archangel defend us in battle; be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray. And do thou, O prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God thrust into hell Satan an all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.
My son and I had a difficult job ahead of us. Recently a fierce storm whipped through his neighborhood and blew over an 80-foot oak into the canopy of a slightly smaller tree in his back yard. The trunk of the oak was nearly four feet in diameter at its base and had a one-inch wide split running up the trunk. The roots had pulled up a mound of earth about two feet high on the opposite side as it leaned into the smaller tree. The canopy of the two trees was a tangled mess and it stood at least 75 feet into the air! It looked unstable and dangerous!
Two years earlier we had rented a 45-foot lift to trim the dead branches out of the same trees as falling branches were a hazard and we wanted to let more sunlight into my son’s back yard. Having gained some confidence after the earlier job, we decided to rent a construction lift platform with a 60-foot platform.
We found out after we unloaded the lift that it just wasn’t quite big enough. But that is all we had. So we got busy trimming the limbs away from the side near some power lines. We managed not to hit the lines, but had some close calls. I had been praying to St. Michael for protection against mishaps. That was one prayer answered.
We learned that the power cord to the control unit in the bucket was too short and became detached just as the bucket was fully extended at 60 feet in the air! My son was shouting instructions at me but was so high that I could barely hear him clearly. I managed to manually override the controls from the ground and lowered the platform halfway. Then a safety mechanism went off, alerting us that the platform had tilted ever so slightly, causing the machine to totally shut down.
What next? There were no ladders that could reach the platform that he was standing on. Fortunately, there was a long rope attached to the platform, so my son rappelled down 30 feet to the ground. Time was lost, but we finally managed to fix the problem. That was only day one.
On day two we moved the lift to the other side of the trees and trimmed even more limbs and branches. For perspective, the picture shows the lift fully extended, yet the trees rose another 20 feet above the platform. The house behind the lift is two stories tall. The leaning oak was so large that it completely blotted the trunk of the smaller tree. The lower branch is what is left of the top of the smaller tree, while the curved branch is what remains of the leaning oak that was resting on the tree beneath it. Those branches were 8 to 10 inches in diameter where they were cut.
The trouble was that those final branches may have threatened my son’s life or house and attached deck. Moments after this picture was taken, the top branches were finally cut. They fell perfectly straight down, with only the smallest limbs brushing against the deck. I had been praying to St. Michael to protect my son from any backlash and the house from damage.
As I showed my wife the pictures of our job, she exclaimed, “Look at this picture! It has a ray of light shining on the tree. No other pictures have it.”
Was that Saint Michael, informing us of his presence? You be the judge.
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