If a tree falls...

The excitement just never stops. Our doorbell rang yesterday at dusk and it's a man from the City about the tree which has split and blocked the side street, the one used by ambulances and police. Our neighbor has said the property was ours.

And indeed it is. With absolutely NO wind, the Bradford pear, about 30 years old, has split down the middle (beautiful that they are year-round, probably the reason they're no longer the landscaper's darling) and laid itself across the street. It hasn't hit anything. Whew! The power lines are okay and our little oak by the fence is upright. Upshot is the guy from the City is getting the front-end loader, pushing said half tree out of the way, and will be back on Monday to cut it up. Or most of it because now, our back driveway is totally blocked.

There must be an 'X' on this particular piece of real estate. The plum tree, now way past its life-expectancy, has been twisted by errant pickup trucks and other trees and falling fences. Still it produces. The hackberry which held court for the better part of a century in the opposite corner from the Bradford, went down in a straight-line wind 14 years ago, tanking into the street. Once the storm died down, it was pushed and torqued by the City out of the street and onto our driveway, taking down a section of fence with it.

Maybe we should consider some bushes, instead.