The Full Worm Moon Rising at Sunset

Please enjoy this photo of the nearly full worm moon rising through pink and purple clouds at sunset! And now I'm going to tell you a story that has very little to do with this picture. . . .

It's been an odd couple of days, and now there is a thing I need to tell you about yesterday. I had a fabulous amphibian experience at the vernal pools on Friday morning, seeing things I had never seen before in my life: lots of spotted salamanders, newts walking on water, and pollen rainbows on a vernal pool.

Amazing winds chased me out of the woods, and I headed for home. Shortly after I arrived at our property, the winds howling around our house and through our woods like a freight train brought another huge tree down!

I was there to see it (again), of course. I was standing by the deck door windows, and I heard the sound of the wind change. I can't explain it, but I just knew what was coming. I heard a CRACK! like a cannon, as the tree broke, and then fell, and there was a thud that shook our house when it hit the ground. Miraculously, the tree fell parallel to our house, not on it!

Of course, my husband and I immediately ran out to check the damage. The tree, a maple, made a pretty good mess, as it fell forward onto other trees. The one tree that it landed on is actually the last tree whose huge branch fell and took our power and phone and Internet out and brought the electric line down onto our front porch in October. (See list of recent tree falls on or near our property at the bottom of this blip.)

We spent the next couple of hours doing as much clean-up as we could, with the tools we have. And I myself spent those hours playing pick-up sticks. This is a game they should ask you if you enjoy before you buy a house and property with trees, as my experience has been that you are going to be playing A LOT OF IT!!!

The really good thing about it, though, is that the tree fall didn't take the power out. So I was having mixed feelings, as one does, when a thing like this happens. I felt very unlucky that the tree fell, but very fortunate that it missed the house and that the lights stayed on. But then, with winds continuing, our power DID go out, but not because of OUR tree; it was back on in about an hour and a half. What a day!

Now let me tell you the back-story of the tree that fell. It is the remaining half of the Hero Tree that saved my house in the great ice storm of the first week of January 2005. I had just bought the house in May of 2004, and it was my first winter in the house. I was living there alone at the time.

About a hundred trees fell on my property that night as they grew too heavy with all of that ice, with most of them trying to hit the house; half of my roof was ruined. A whole bunch of trees were held, and stopped from squashing my house, by this Hero Tree. So thank you, tree, for how you saved us before. I guess it was just your time. . . .

Anyway, as I sat contemplating all of this at day's end on Saturday, I thought about all of the things in life you can't control, and how some days toss you both very good AND very bad things, and how puzzling it all is to even figure out what it all means, or whether you have even LEARNED anything from your experiences. (What does one learn, when a great tree falls?)

But then I looked out the window and saw the moon rising through pink and purple clouds. I instantly ran out with my camera and took a bunch of photos, including the one above. And I was delighted! It may have been a very strange day or two but it ended up with a fine, fine moonrise!

Now, the only song I can think of to go with this story is the song Free Fallin' (Tree Fallin'?) by Tom Petty. But I think I'm going to pick a version sung by his life-long friend Stevie Nicks. Here is a live version, and here is a studio recording. Enjoy!

Trees that fell on or contiguous to our property:
Surveying the Damage - 7/17/19
In Which Disaster Strikes - 8/18/19
In Which a Great Tree Falls - 3/29/20
In Which Yet Another Tree Falls - 10/13/20