# Uh, boss - I'm going to be a little late today ...



## rlemert (Feb 16, 2013)

Valentine's morning, my wife climbs into the car to go to work. She starts it up, looks in the mirror to back out of the carport, and sees an electrical cable hanging over the edge of the house. She shuts off the car, looks out at the driveway, and sees this ...




Valentine Tree Fall 2 (power pole) by Rich1760, on Flickr

The power line is supposed to come up beside our driveway (from the right) and split, one side going to our neighbor's house (which you can see here) and the other side - which is now lying on the ground - coming to our house.

Wondering what's going on, she goes to the top of the driveway, turns to her right, and sees this ...




Valentine Tree Fall 1 by Rich1760, on Flickr

Needless to say she (and I) were not going to make it to work anytime soon.

There was no wind, it hadn't rained all that much, and the tree seemed to be pretty healthy (I'll show that later). It had always leaned out over the driveway, though, and away from the house, so there was a lateral stress always present. The only thing we could figure was the roots had problems. Here's a closer view of the "root ball"...




Valentine Tree Fall 4 - Stump by Rich1760, on Flickr

Here's the fence it took out. The power line coming off the street is underneath that somewhere.




Valentine Tree Fall 3 - Fence by Rich1760, on Flickr

The fence is ours, and the tree fell into our neighbor's "natural area", so we don't owe the neighbors any damages.

Finally, here's my wife standing next to the logs cut from the tree to show its size...




Valentine Tree Fall - logs next to Linda by Rich1760, on Flickr

You can see that this part of the trunk looks in pretty good shape. The cut next to the stump looked just like this.

  My wife and some of our neighbors say they heard the thing come down at about 4:55 am. As usual, I slept through it. The most interesting part of this is that we never lost power - until the power company shut off the line so the tree guy could start working. The neighbors weren't so lucky though - the line to them did come apart.

  I told my wife I was giving her a little excitement for valentine's day.


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## o hey tyler (Feb 16, 2013)

img goes in the brackets, not the whole word.


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## rlemert (Feb 16, 2013)

o hey tyler said:


> img goes in the brackets, not the whole word.



I'm trying. It's been ages since I posted last, and Flickr's changed how they do things. Please be patient.


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## MiFleur (Feb 16, 2013)

Enough wood to build a new fence! That was a big one!


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## kathyt (Feb 16, 2013)

Wow. That's crazy. That is some nice firewood.


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## o hey tyler (Feb 16, 2013)

rlemert said:


> I'm trying. It's been ages since I posted last, and Flickr's changed how they do things. Please be patient.



It's okay, you got it!


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## Ron Evers (Feb 16, 2013)

Looks like rot @ the roots.  I could sure use the firewood.


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## skieur (Feb 16, 2013)

Ron Evers said:


> Looks like rot @ the roots.  I could sure use the firewood.



You would need one powerful log splitter.


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## Ron Evers (Feb 16, 2013)

skieur said:


> Ron Evers said:
> 
> 
> > Looks like rot @ the roots.  I could sure use the firewood.
> ...




That would be me.


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## Rick58 (Feb 16, 2013)

Maul, wedges and sledge. There's a Ben-Gay commerical in the making. I've certainly been on the swinging end of that operation for more years then I care to remember....Then came the tractor mounted spitter :hail:


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