A Day's Excitement

Yesterday we woke to find a huge limb from one of our back-yard trees perched precariously on top of the back porch roof. Around 11 p.m., the night before, Trevor and John both had heard the sound of a great creaking and then a loud rumble that shook the house, but just assumed it was thunder from the storm. This was the view from our living room window:

And the view from both sides of the back yard:

John called a tree removal service and they came right out to assess the damage. They felt it needed immediate removal. We were able to watch from inside as they rigged ropes to support the place where the branch broke away from the tree. Then they began sawing off smaller limbs and lowering them down to workmen to carry to the chipper/shredder. I was hoping to watch to see how they managed to get down the largest part of the limb, but I took the boys to the final day of the high school pool's sessions. By the time we returned, they were leaving and the tree limb was completely gone.

We are fortunate that the damage was so minimal. If the branch had been higher above the roof, it might have required significant repairs. All in all, it provided a day's excitement and an interesting story to file for our summer.