Sometimes Mother Nature Wins

Back in August, less than one week before Hurricane / Tropical Storm Irene smashed into Monroe and the rest of Connecticut I had many of the trees surrounding my yard significantly pruned, or in some cases removed altogether.  These trees had never been touched before and I used a professional arborist and a company with many years of experience to do the work. This was work that I had planed long before anyone even thought of Irene.  

When Irene hit, I watched as the trees swayed more than I thought possible, but none came down and nothing significant broke off.  All I had were leaves, twigs, and very small branches.  Obviously I was very relieved.  I still lost power with the rest of my neighborhood, but that is another story. 

When the October snow surprise hit, I thought at first that it would not really be so bad.  After all, I had survived Irene with barely a scratch.  How wrong I was.  The first sign of trouble came when I looked out the window and saw a large limb from an old oak tree lying in the snow.  By later that evening, even in the darkness, I could make out other limbs that suffered the same fate.  The last thing I saw before going to bed were limbs loaded with snow blowing back and forth.  I was sure something was going to come down on my house. 

I awoke the next morning to a beautiful snow covered landscape.  Then I started to notice the full extent of the damage.  Almost every tree that surrounded my yard had some type of damage.  In some cases limbs broke off of large trees and destroyed smaller trees underneath. In other cases limbs that were more than two stories tall hung straight down to the ground.  In other cases they broke off or partially broke and were stuck in the trees.  What a sad sight. 

I immediately called my tree company and they came to examine the damage and found even more than I had seen. We came to an agreement on what needed to be done and one day later I watched as a crew of five did their work.  As I stood next to one of the workers watching the one full tree that had to be taken down going into the wood chipper, we lamented the loss of such a grand tree. Then the worker reminded me that Mother Nature put the tree there and Mother Nature took it away.