Yesterday morning I awoke to a winter wonderland! Bouncing down the stairs like a kid on Christmas morning, I saw a heavy dusting of white powder all over the front yard; it had snowed! Giddy with excitement at the thought of what gorgeous photo opportunities awaited me on the other side of the wall protecting me from the freezing elements outside I hunted down the camera and grabbed my boots, jacket, hat, and scarf. Despite how I was acting, I am no longer a kid so I knew this would likely be a very brief adventure outside of the nice, warm, cozy home. I threw open the front door, clicked on the camera, stored the lens cover in my pocket, and set to snapping! I’ve always loved the ferns that line the pathway to our front door and the peaceful creek area on the other side of them, but seeing them covered in snow gave them an entirely new look! There were several people walking up and down the street but I put my focus into that camera lens, taking picture after picture along the sidewalk up towards the driveway. Every so often I’d glance up and catch someone watching me as they walked by. What’s the matter? Never seen a grown child with a camera in the snow before? First time for everything, I guess…I kept snapping away merrily until I had gotten most of the way to the driveway and was met with a horrifying sight. I stopped dead in my tracks, like a deer in headlights, before gathering my thoughts, swiftly turning right back around, and running (pretty careless of me, I know…hindsight…) straight back inside the house. Garrett was still sleeping so I went barreling through the front door shouting his name and telling him to get down here. Now.
I heard him rustling around, getting dressed quickly before bolting down the stairs (also pretty careless, but hey, we were panicking) to get shoes and a jacket. Once he was adequately dressed for the bitter cold, we went through the front door and I guided him up the sidewalk to show him what I had seen.
Our tree, the one that was between our garage and the sidewalk to the front door, had fallen. So what, trees fall all of the time. Right? Sure. But let me show you exactly what caused our panic.
The tree had fallen onto the driveway, where Garrett parks his work vehicle. I can hear you now…”But Chel Belle, those branches barely even reach that Rogue. What are you freaking out about? I bet there’s not even a scratch on that thing.” True. But allow me to guide your attention more to the right, further up the driveway and on the other side of said pile of attached sticks.
See that gray and red through the branches? Yup. Garrett’s brand new truck. I know some people like to adorn their vehicles with bumper stickers and sometimes roof ornaments, but I don’t really think that a tree makes the best car décor! About this time our neighbor rounded the corner of her home and shifted our attention from his truck to their house, as if what we were dealing with wasn’t enough of a concern already!
Thankfully, the damage to their house is minimal compared to what it could have been had the tree fallen a mere couple of feet further left. Their gutter has been dented pretty badly, some of the siding has also been dented from the impact and scrapping of the limbs, and the downspout has been knocked off. Thank goodness for insurance, right? Oh…. Insurance. As this is our first home, now we have to learn how to make claims through insurance! I’m hoping that it’ll go relatively smoothly since the damage on their end isn’t much and based on our experience with the tree prior to the fall and the condition of the roots, the tree was clearly alive when it fell, thus absolving us of liability…I hope…
After getting over the initial shock and discussing our next moves with the neighbor, we set about inspecting the tree a bit more. I alerted my boss that I may not be able to make it to work tomorrow, as this tree was across our driveway and my car is in the garage. Since the tree was on his, we didn’t want to cut it up ourselves and risk any further possible damage to his truck.
Once we had satisfied our curiosity and gotten a good look at what we were dealing with, we went back inside to warm up for a few moments. The one thing I miss about the snow from Indiana, yes there’s only one thing, it’s seeing Sterling turning into a bigger puppy than he already acts like while rolling around in and eating the snow! So we snagged the leashes and buckled up the dogs. Oh, and I grabbed the camera again, of course! Sterling wouldn’t sit still, so it was pretty hard to get pictures of him that weren’t blurry! I did, however, get to enjoy tossing a few snow clumps at him (I was too lazy to make them into proper snowballs, I had pictures to take)! Carolina was much more interested in feasting on the soft, solid water before promptly making it known that she wanted to return to the warm confines of the couch!
Having returned them to the warmth and safety of the house, we braved the cold once more so I could actually get the pictures of the wonderland around us as I had been trying to get for hours. Wandering around the front yard and walking up the street a bit, I was able to get a lot of really pretty shots. And then we saw what made our problems look much smaller immediately…our property was not the only that had suffered the loss of a tree or damage to a home…Our neighbor on the other side of us had a massive tree fall on their house, crushing their back porch, roof, gutters, and chimney. We instantly felt better about our situation, but felt absolutely horrible for them!
They were able to locate a tree removal company rather quickly though, so the process of removing the tree from off of their house began in the afternoon. Garrett and I peered through the kitchen window every so often to watch as these brave gentlemen climbed this precarious tree while toting their motorized chainsaws, causing branches to rain down around the corner of the house. I tell you what, that is one job that seems absolutely terrifying! Eventually we wandered over to them and inquired about a quote for the removal of our tree once they were done. With the completion of their current job, they were now set to come over to our house. Unfortunately for us, I think we acted a bit quickly which caused us to spend more than was probably necessary, but again, hindsight. We got a knock on the door in the evening informing us that they would have to come back in the morning to finish the neighbor’s tree removal since it was getting dark, and then our tree would be next.
They managed to get our tree removed pretty quickly and even left us part of the trunk to use for wedding decoration! After talking to the owner of the removal company on site and seeing the inside of the trunk of the tree, it was officially declared that the tree was, in fact, alive when it fell. The owner’s conclusion was that the ground had become so saturated from the melting snow and the limbs so heavy from the ice that the tree simply uprooted and took a dive. Our fate is now in the hands of the insurance company!
I am also happy to report that there’s not a single scratch or dent anywhere that we could note on Garrett’s truck! All in all, I think we were incredibly lucky with how that tree fell. If it had fallen slightly more to the left, it would have done significantly more damage to the neighbor’s house. Slightly more to the right, and it would have fallen right on top of his truck, actually inflicting damage on it. So the only potential casualty to the falling of the tree is a lone Hydrangea bush! We’ll have to wait until Spring to see if it’ll make it…
So thank you, Mother Nature, for taking our conversation weeks prior about the possibility of having that tree removed so that we can cut back on the issues of lack of sunlight to our roof causing moss, accumulation of pine needles on said roof, and access point to our garage attic for the rats to heart. While the removal of the tree was, indeed, a discussion and future plan, your assistance in the matter was not exactly what we had in mind and was unwanted.
P.S. Here are some of the shots I finally managed to take during my multiple photoshoot attempts 🙂 Enjoy!
