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Tuesday, October 16, 2007

My Trees Hate Me

I've always loved trees. I like camping and hiking and climbing in trees but for some reason some of the trees in my yard hate me. To the point of actually trying to kill me. Yesterday my wife and I were cleaning out the garage so that we could park a car we had just bought a day and a half before. My truck was parked in it's usual spot in front of the garage door that I can't park it in because there is no room in the garage and the new car was in front of the space we were trying to clean out so we could park it inside. Our CRV was originally in front of the gate leading to the back yard but I moved it back about fifteen feet so I could try to snag a small limb that was dangling from a tree. That done, I went back to cleaning out the garage; throwing stuff away and piling others over on "my side" of the garage. When I went to get some things out of the back seat of the CRV I heard a large cracking noise that had me fuddled. I pulled my head out of the car and turned around just in time to see a tree fall a few short feet from me and smack onto the trunk and quarter panel of our new car that we've only had a day and a half.
As I took the scene in with a considerable amount of disbelief I noticed that the tree had also yanked the power and phone lines from the side of the house damaging my trim work. The power was still dangling from some fasteners that were a few feet down from the one that got yanked out and the phone line was completely on the ground. The cable wire was unharmed.
I was kind of in a state of shock but we started calling insurance and utility companies immediately. The power company had a guy over in about twenty minutes and it only took him about twenty to repair it. He was a real nice guy too. The phone company said they were backed up and might not have someone over until late the next day. In the mean time I started cutting up the tree and moving it to the street. Twenty minutes later a truck pulls up and gathers it up with this cool scoop that could pick up about fifteen logs in one bite. This guy was so good he even used the scoop to pick up a pile of pinestraw I had swept up beside the pile of logs. As soon as this guy leaves the phone company truck pulls up and fixes my phone line. If it were not for the big dent in the trunk and quarter panel of my car and the big holes and cracks in my trim on the house. No one would ever know that the trees had just tried to kill me. What I can't believe is that through all of this I and my wife did not think of running inside to get the camera and shooting of some pictures. I guess because I asked the insurance lady if we needed pictures and she said no. Pictures just left my mind completely.

I don't know why the trees hate me. This is the second tree in three months that tried to crush my cars. Lightening was a major player in that one.

I have decided it is time to get tough with the trees. I've called a few timber companies and see if they can come BUY some of the thirty odd tall pines that are in my yard. Or at least defray the cost of getting rid of them.

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