BigGuy is the luckiest man I know......

I would place money on the fact that someone in Heaven is smiling down on my husband 24 hours a day. Yes, I know we all have this blessing, but I would bet money that BigGuy is being watched a little more then the rest of us......That support is just watching him and maybe helping to keep him safe, but he does that pretty well - but surely they are making certain that the things he procrastinates about aren't too terrible in the end. This past event was the perfect example.

See sometime last fall we began to look at one of our HUGE pine trees that sits just outside our deck. Since we have lived here it has always leaned to one side a smidge......but we began to think that perhaps it was leaning a bit more. BigGuy talked about tying a string to a low branch to see if it came closer to the ground as weeks past. But he never did. Then he talked about marking the base of the tree when we thought again that it looked more "leany". But he never did. Then in the winter - February I think or maybe March around my birthday - my mom came to visit. She spends time on the deck smoking - so she has also watched the Pine. She mentioned it was leaning more. BigGuy talked about tying his string again......but never did. Then a month later it looked certainly more to one side and he placed a piece of wood at the base to see if the tree would drive it into the ground as it leaned......even I thought that was kinda silly. TheKing moved that piece of wood the next day.

Now you might wonder why we just couldn't logically look at the root base and see that it was pulling up higher. Only the base of the tree continued to look EXACTLY the same. No roots were coming up.

Finally it became totally obvious the tree was leaning - I could reach the branches. I could NOT reach the branches when we bought the house. Shoot I couldn't reach the branches a month ago. So BigGuy made a solid plan (kinda solid) to cut the tree down. A friend had done it before and he talked of having him over the weekend I was going to be out of town and chopping the tree down with the guys chain saw and a tall ladder he would rent. We joked about having a video tape so we could video what happened when they accidentally caused the tree to fall into our house. Joking.....only I was kinda seriously worried. His plan included one guy holding a rope that was tied around the tree - one guy on the ladder with the chain saw - and one guy pushing around the base - not very safe sounding right?



Well we got lucky. None of that had to happen. The Thursday of my Bunco party we had 50 mile an hour winds. That morning the tree was leaning directly toward our deck. The projected drop would have caused the tree to just clip the edge of the roof in our dining room. I wasn't too worried if that happened, but it was not my choice outcome. We got lucky though - the winds were from the South East........which was blowing AWAY from our house. They were so strong that they redirected the angle the tree was starting to fall. It began to go straighten out and go away from the deck - but still I evacuated the furniture and toys from the line of fall. This first pic shows the tree when I realized it was coming down.....


Through the day I watched. It was so crazy windy that I fully expected to hear a crack and crash at any point. But that just never happened. The wind kept working the tree - first away from the house - YEA!! As soon as it was going into the yard I kept TheKing out of the back.


Then as the day went by I just kept taking pictures. These are the four that show you best movement of the tree. Slowly slowly slowly the tree just kinda leaned over. I waited for the giant "thunk" and a little movement of the earth like a tiny quake, but that just never happened. I phoned BigGuy and told him he could probably cancel the rented ladder......and just kept watch and taking pics.


It was fun. My bunco friends came over and we all walked about and looked at the tree. It eventually stopped its slow free fall........well really it can't be described as a free fall......it just kinds stopped slowly moving. The other giant pine held it in its embrace. Almost like they were saying "goodbye" to each other. And that is the way it stayed. Bunco happened and no crash. The next day I prepped for our GS trip to STL and nothing crashed. BigGuy had guy friends in the neighborhood come over to see what happened (see he procrastinated asking the work friend to help and the work friend had plans) and they ALL wanted to help. Typical boys - I didn't get to see it, but I think they had fun. Another neighbor asked me about it later.....he said as he drove by he saw three guys climbing the fallen tree and the other tree with a chain saw. He said he had hoped to find time to come back and help.....ha! Boys and toys - they just get bigger - both the boy and the toy.


In the end it was pretty cool though. The tree cost us NOTHING to take down. What could have been close to a thousand professionally - or if accidentally dropped it could have cost thousands to repair damage it could cost...and it was NOTHING. On top of that BigGuy got a bonding experience with neighborhood friends!! So someone was watching out for him.....because he is the luckiest man I know.