If a tree falls…

Oh goodness. Trees. I should have bought a house on a prairie.

Yesterday was a good work day outside. I went and picked up a truck load of mulch for $10 at a local landscaping place, came home and did some mowing, and then spent some peaceful time weeding the makeshift veggie area by the side of the house. I’m letting the dill finish flowering and go to seed while the black swallowtails finish their life cycle of caterpillar and chrysalis before turing into beautiful butterflies. The onions and garlic have another month and the collards are almost done, bolting as we ‘speak’.

Chris came home in mid-afternoon and we did a few things around the yard and then took a nap, afterwards deciding on the dinner movie theater for the evening. He was showering, I was on the computer telling Facebook about the summer tanager we saw earlier in the afternoon when shortly after I’d submitted the message I heard a crackling, rustling noise from outside. It sounded like a branch fell and I went outside to investigate. I wasn’t on the front porch long when my neighbor spotted me and told me “Your tree fell!”

Sure enough I peered around to the backyard and there was what had been a perfectly alive and well pine tree earlier that morning as I mowed around it broken at its base and being supported by a sweetgum near the pond.

Crappity, crap, crap. Actually it was more like damn, damn, damn.

My neighbor and her boyfriend had been in the back room of her house and heard the sound too and were stunned to see the tree laying there. I couldn’t believe it either! I expected pine beetles to be crawling out of it but didn’t see any and there hadn’t been any sign of pine beetle infestation there anyway (no sawdust at the base). My next thought was perhaps it was red heart but I can’t tell from the broken base and I never saw one of the outer conks that are prevalent.

So, I don’t know.

It is just so strange! All I think is, what triggered it? Did the ground shift a bit and then *bam!* it fell? I dreamed about it last night, imagining a sinkhole taking over our yard and other pines falling down.

Ack. It just sucks to lose what seemed like a perfectly good tree. Chris isn’t going to attempt to cut it up due to its precarious nature so I’ll be calling for quotes to get it taken care of this week. I guess the ‘ok’ news is that now the sapling pine that was just in front of the pair of pines there will be able to grow and take over that spot, but now I’m worried about the pine tree next to it, will it fall someday?

I think it was three years ago, right before we left for the AT, a storm damaged a tree at my grandfather’s house and it had to be cut down. I can’t remember his exact words but I think he said he had ‘tree-itis’. Well, Grandad, me too.