All gone

Well....today the tree was taken down. It took four men. Three to cut the pieces and haul it out to the chipper and one to scale the tree.

The climber went up the tree taking down all the limbs along the way. When that was done he went as high as he could safely go and started taking the trunk down in sections.

As each section came down you could see where it was split throughout the trunk. The cracks went the entire length of the tree. As they would cut these sections into smaller pieces the cracks just made the trunk fall apart.

Well things certainly look different out in the yard.

Even though we have many pine....it's remarkable what a difference it makes to loose one.

Lightening Saga Continues....

Well....our questions have now been answered as to whether or not the tree will survive. The top half of the tree is now on the ground....actually, half on the ground and half in the pool.

Thankfully nobody was out in the backyard when the tree decided to give up. I simply heard a huge crack and ran out to see what happened.

I can now tell you what the surface of water looks like when pine tar hits it. Looks kinda like an oil slick.

Because of the pine...I had to start clearing enough to get the branches out of the pool. I spent a fair amout of time with a saw today....new tool for me!!

I've at least gotten it cleared out of the pool and now have several calls into tree removal companies to get some feedback on taking the rest down. There are still several huge branches now hanging by a thread just waiting for a breeze.

It's pretty sad to see it go. Oddly, I was just speaking with my homeowners insurence company today to see what they would cover...if anything. They said "Oh no...you would have to pay for this....unless of course it falls and hits the house....then we'll pay for it".

You just can't win, can ya!

When lightening strikes!!

In the wee hours of Wednesday morning, during an amazing thunderstorm, one of the huge pine trees in my backyard was struck!!

I must say that the sight of the damage to that tree was shocking. I finally realized the power behind such forces of nature.

Thank goodness I've got a camera with an awesome zoom on it since this tree is very tall. The zoom allowed me to get a more detailed shot of the damage to the top.

When looked at up close it almost looks as if the lightening spun all around it.

The two long gashes that are side by side in one shot are actually on the rear side of the tree.

There is a big long hit near the bottom on the front side that seemed to be the place where the lightening left and hit the ground....because from the base of the tree there is a long slice through the plastic landscaping material under the gravel near the picnic table that carries through until it reaches the grass.

I don't have a clue where it went from there, but a number of electrical things in the house became affected. One of which was my modem that was blown (luckily I had the computer off and it didn't follow through) and the battery in the handset of the cordless phone was blown out. I've only just gotten back online after waiting two days for the service person to come out and get everything running again.

He could see some of the burnt out connections out on the pole where the electric charge ran out to. I'm just lucky there wasn't more damage done.

I put in one picture that I took from the front yard looking over the roof of the breezeway and garage at the tree that was hit just to show you how close this actually was to the house.

My next job is to see if this poor tree is going to have to come down. I have no idea just yet if it will survive this hit.

Well...fingers crossed that the old saying "lightening never hits twice in the same place" is true!!