[day 200 ... july 19]

I awoke at 2 a.m. to the quiet of night sharply broken by a prolonged, deafening crash outside. I knew what it was: the dead tree in front, that had just attacked my car in December to the tune of thousands of dollars of damage, had finally given up waiting for me to have it taken down by professionals. Yikes! Nothing I could do about it then so I went back to sleep, hoping that the damage would be minimal.

THANKFULLY, the tree had the grace to fall in an amazingly good direction. It didn't take out any other trees and didn't hit the tent trailer, nor did it block the driveway. Yay!

It did break off some branches from a nearby maple tree and bent some already-suffering hedge bushes (the winter snows were ruthless on those weak limbs). But I moved branches around a bit and now all is well.

Not sure if we'll leave the already-near-rotting tree to turn into a nurse log (that would be fascinating, as Keturah suggested), or rent a chain saw and carve it up. I'm actually leaning more toward just leaving it there, now that it's finally down. Definitely a relief not to have the imminent threat hanging over the driveway anymore.