Well, I can’t say we saw this coming.

What you can’t tell by the photo is that if the tree had been leaning the other way, it would have decimated the new barn roof. Instead, it veered right and destroyed the raspberry and blueberry garden beds–and, ugh–the much beloved wood chipper. Check out this post if you need a better visual.

I don’t know if anyone’s ever able to grow accustomed to the sound of large tree limbs cracking and falling… we hear it more often that I ever expected, I guess, at least once a week or so, regardless of rain or shine, but always in the valley way behind the house, rarely if ever within our line of sight. In this instance, we didn’t hear it. Pete and I had left town and returned home in the pouring rain at midnight on Saturday, me, super eager to go to bed and him, super eager to see how the shingles on the barn had held up under a full day of Rochester rain (side note: very well, no leaks). We stumbled on the tree with a single flashlight in the pitch blackness of the backyard, barely at all able to comprehend what exactly we were looking at, or exactly how large the thing was, or what we were going to be left cleaning up. Sunday morning was an awesome sight.

The tree had cracked right at the base, one visible root with a 12″ diameter completely severed like it was the only thing anchoring this tree upright for however many years. The trunk itself is larger than I can wrap my arms around, and it appears that the whole thing landed, and then rolled, targeting the wood chipper like a sniper, crushing it like a soda can, and then burying it half underground. I’m consoling myself by eating a whole pan of Rice Krispie treats and talking with our insurance claims agent to see what can feasibly be covered. We just switched our homeowners insurance to a new company 4 days ago, they’re thrilled (not).

BTW, this majorly justifies our rationale for having chosen Bargain Outlet shingles when Pete shingled the barn last week. I poke fun at our cheapness sometimes, but in this case, I’m pretty certain we’ll see a heavy branch (if not a whole tree) bust the roof open again sometime in the next 25 years, rendering any high quality shingles a waste of money.

Happy Monday.