Be careful of what you wish for

Just this past Sunday I was sitting on my front stoop,sipping coffee and thinking about all the future flower beds and plantings I'd like to put in. As usual my day dreams came to an abrupt halt when my eyes fell upon the enormous "garbage" tree which towers over the front of my home and blocks any hope of even a trickle of sunlight dappling upon my sparse landscaping. I refer to it as the "garbage" tree because first, I have no clue to what type of tree it is and second it sheds various tree debris year round, requiring constant clean up. My husband joined me on the stair and glared at the tree with equal disdain. "I HATE that tree" I told him. "Yeah, me too" he replied. I jokingly added that if the tree were ever to fall, at least it would fall away from the house.

Upon my return from a family shopping trip yesterday the wind began to pick up as pulled my little VW bug into the garage. Small hail which soon turned into large ice cubes began to cover the area. Instead of making a mad dash to the house we decided to wait it out inside the garage. The wind was howling by this point and I watched siding being ripped from the side of our garage. I instructed the kids to get away from he windows as debris began to fly over the top of my house. The freakish storm ended almost as quickly as it started. When I opened the door to the garage it took me a minute to realize that the garbage tree was no longer there. As you can see from the picture....boy was I wrong about it's path of descent.