We had a dry hurricane here last week. We had wind registering 100 mph at the University. Two miles away at my house our 60 year old huge evergreen went down. I drove home increasingly nervous about our tree because I saw tree after tree down. When I turned left on my street I saw this:
I said to the kids, oh my god, stay in the car. I think our tree ate a car. I got out of the car and ran over to find a man standing there. He said he was stopped at the stop sign in front of our house, looked up and the tree fell on him. Down the road a bit a tree totaled a car - just smooshed it - it was in all the papers and all over the news. But my tree landed on this guy in his car and did no damage.
Here you see the tree from the street - notice that it is blocking most of the road. The white truck behind the tree is the City guy who said to me "it's your tree." I said, no shit, I know it's my tree. Let me wave my magic wand to fix it - because what they wanted was for me to pick it up and move it off the street. When I indicated the odds of my moving it in any kind of timely fashion were pretty slim, he called some other city guys and they chain sawed the guy's car out of the tree and cleared the tree off the road. Miraculously, the guy backed his car up and drove away - he has made no claim against my homeowner's insurance. Then two kids showed up and asked if we wanted to have him cut it all up and take it away for $500 - I said, yeah, go for it.
I cried and I laughed as I told this story. On my little quarter acre of land I have - had - 8 trees, now I have 7. And I loved my big evergreen - it housed the magpies who came every year to teach their babies to fly. It blocked the sun from the house and made the Princess's room very cool in the summer.
Once, when I was crying, the Princess told me it would be okay, we could plant another tree. She's right, and we will.
