In Which Disaster Strikes: Another Tree Falls!

I was rudely jolted out of sleep at 5 a.m. on this day by a loud CRACK and then a THUD which shook the house. In my confused state, I thought it might be the first few licks of an approaching thunderstorm. But when there was no more sound or fury, I realized what had happened: yet another tree had fallen on our house!

My husband and I were instantly up. He turned on the outside light, and we looked out onto the deck, which was covered in tree debris. He went outside to check on it, and yes, indeed, one of our big trees had fallen. We're not sure what kind it is but it is 60 to 70 feet tall and has lots of small red and maroon berries on it.

It doesn't take long to realize that there's nothing you can really do about such things at 5 a.m. "I'll call the insurance lady at 9," I said, and then we both tried to go back to bed. A bit of fitful sleep, at best, was all we got from there. But it was better than staying up.

When daylight came, we went out together and surveyed the devastation. The tree that fell just suddenly toppled over. It was not even windy or stormy or raining at the time. I pondered that question: what determines when a great tree finally falls? Here's a sobering thought: if either of us had been on the deck when the tree fell, we would surely have been killed.

I walked around and took a bunch of pictures, partly because that's who I am and what I do, but also because I knew I'd need them for the insurance company. So I took probably two dozen photos or more. The photo above shows the back of our house, with the deck, and the tree that fell. To the right, out of scene, is a whole bunch more tree. To the left, you can see that the top part of the tree is on the roof.

I called the insurance company at 9 and filed a claim. The lady that I spoke to said the adjuster (located in a different office) should be back in touch with me within 24 hours, and in fact, most likely she'd be able to come out today and look at it. She filled out a form online and told me the adjuster would be back in touch soon. So I decided to sit by the phone and wait for her call.

In the meantime, my husband started clearing out some of the branches and debris, moving them off the deck and sweeping away the berries, which were everywhere. When the tree hit the back side of the house, a cascade of berries went down over the FRONT of the house and onto the two outside cars, which had to be rinsed off before the berries dried, leaving dark brown spots on the paint.

So he did some chopping and sweeping, and I was the hauler, hauling things away and putting them on a pile at the edge of the woods. We really just wanted to clear it out enough that we could see what the damages were. And soon it was pretty clear that some of our deck railing has been destroyed. The deck floor itself and the built-in deck bench both appear to be fine.

We recovered the hummingbird feeder from the debris field and were surprised to find that it was OK! We moved it down into Barb's butterfly garden while we did some clean-up work. The hummingbirds came by and were confused, looking for their feeder (especially the little "guardian" of the feeder). The fawns came by, hoping to hang out under the deck as they often do, but it was too loud and too busy there for them on this day.

My husband got out the ladder and went up onto the roof, did some sweeping and trimming, tried to assess the damage. But until the tree is removed, it is nearly impossible to determine the level of damage to the roof. I cleared everything out of the front closet so he could get on the ladder and peer up into the attic with a flashlight. No obvious damage was visible.

We did some more clean-up on the deck, and it seemed that yellow jackets were hanging around the fallen tree. We are not sure if they lived in that tree, or if they were somehow drawn to it because it fell (and was suddenly more interesting), or if they were attracted to the berries. So we did our best to remove all berries from the deck. The yellow jackets were drawn to the hummingbird feeder, so we moved it off the deck again, and back into Barb's butterfly garden.

The big mystery at this point is the status of the roof, including whether it will leak the next time we get a big rain. We saw not one but TWO afternoon thunderstorms heading for us on the online weather radar map, but both of them actually SPLIT and went directly around us, giving us no more than a passing drizzle. (Thank you, angels!)

So a lot of things were happening as we were waiting, and as I sat by the phone (no, we do not have a cell phone, so I was pretty much prisoner of the phone). By mid-afternoon, I was growing impatient, so I called the lady at the insurance company back and asked her for a phone number and email for the adjuster so that I could contact her myself. I left both a phone message and an email message for the adjuster, asking how soon she could come by.

About a half-hour later, the phone rang. It was the insurance adjuster, and she wanted to know if we had contacted anyone yet for an estimate on the tree removal; and/or did I have somebody already working on removing the tree yet? Well, that threw me for a loop!

I explained that our understanding (based on our conversation with the lady at the insurance company) was that the adjuster had to come and look at the big mess BEFORE we did Thing One with a tree removal service, but she said No.

She said she would not even come out to LOOK at the damage to our house and deck until the tree was gone. She told me to contract with someone who is licensed and insured, have the tree removed, and then call her to come look at the house and deck. Gee, I wish I'd have known this! I'd have been moving and shaking all day, instead of sitting by the phone waiting for help to arrive!

The adjuster asked me to upload photos of the tree that fell to the insurance company's online portal, to which she would email me a link. She also informed us that I would need to PAY for the tree's removal myself (she estimated $1500 to $5000 total, based on our description of the size of the tree and amount of damage), and then the insurance company would reimburse me. It made me wonder: how many regular people have that kind of spare change lying around????

When we got off the phone with the insurance adjuster, I began researching local tree removal companies, based on input I received to a query in our local neighborhood Facebook group. I took about eight companies and googled their customer reviews.

Based on what I found, I picked one that had the best and most positive reviews, and my husband called and left them a message, which has not been returned yet. As I am typing this, it is Saturday here, and I am doubting much more will happen before Monday morning.

We've had a number of tree disasters in the past few years. In fact, there have been SIX that I can make a list of in the past two years alone. (Hey, at least this time, the power stayed on!) Most of them, I have seen them fall or felt it when they fell. Some of them, we have been able to handle ourselves. In one case, we called a neighbor with a chainsaw to come help; we paid him off in cases of beer.

The very first one, where a whole bunch of trees fell on my house in an ice storm in January 2005, was the very worst of all. That one happened while I was in the house alone, long before I was married and my husband moved in, with trees falling, all night long, about one every 15 or 20 minutes. I ended up with a weird tree PTSD after that. Every time the wind blew and the trees shook, I started to get nervous.

This disaster is far less terrible than that one, though it looks similar from this angle. A thing I have learned from home ownership is that trials and tribulations are what help you develop resilience in life. Well, LOOK AT ME, developing resilience all over the frickin' place! We're not through this yet, by a long shot, but we are grateful it was not far worse. I know we'll work through it and everything will be all right. After all, a butterfly told me so!

I have two soundtrack songs for this day. The first is for my husband, who was my stalwart champion, chief chopper, and so many other things. I've been through disasters alone before, but it's far better to have him by my side. The song for him is The Pretenders, with I'll Stand By You.

The second is a song for when daylight hit, and we got to see the devastation. It looked terrible, but somehow I knew (and maybe it was because of that butterfly, who told me so) that it would be OK. Here is my song for that. Dolly Parton wrote it but I love the Wailin' Jennys' performance of it. So here they are: the Wailin' Jennys, with Light of a Clear Blue Morning.

It's been a long dark night
And I've been a waitin' for the morning
It's been a long hard fight
But I see a brand new day a dawning
I've been looking for the sunshine
You know I ain't seen it in so long
But everything's gonna work out just fine
And everything's gonna be all right
That's been all wrong
'Cause I can see the light of a clear blue morning
I can see the light of a brand new day
I can see the light of a clear blue morning
Oh, and everything's gonna be all right
It's gonna be okay