After weeks of hot and dry weather, that all but turned my grass brown from green, we received more rain than we could have ever hoped for during the last week of July.
As a newscaster for a small-town radio station, I have a police scanner in my office that keeps me informed of what all is happening with emergency fire and rescue crews. Thursday night, July 26th, was particularly busy.
Downed wires. Basement pumpouts. Flooded roadways. Trees and utility poles falling.
Never in a million years could I have been prepared for what awaited me when I heard the text tone on my iPhone.
It was from my wife, telling me that a tree had fallen in the back yard. I didn't think it was that big a deal until I got home.
It looked smaller in the picture she texted me. Much smaller. With the rain still falling, I didn't go out to investigate. Since we had a handyman coming in the following afternoon to fix the ceiling in our half-bath, I didn't make it outside until late Friday afternoon after my wife came home.
She and I, along with our three year old, made it to the back yard by the property line.
The tree was probably sixty feet in height, and had a trunk of about two and a half to three feet in diameter. The base of it, along with the uprooted soil, had to be about ten feet wide.
I looked at the ground. the impact of the tree put several small craters in the back yard.
My mother-in-law urged us to call our insurance company and claim it under our homeowners policy.
The only problem with that was a $500 deductible. Uh...no.
A much cheaper option and an idea had formed in my twisted little mind.
My best friend has a camp outside of Erie. He often has to buy firewood on the way there, usually at $25 for a cord. Not a bad deal, but why not make lemonade of this lemon?
So I called and left him a message on his machine. He immediately called me back.
He said he wouldn't make it out for probably a few days, but he definitely wanted some.
Have at it, I told him. It'll be here for awhile.
My next-door neighbor also stopped over. He knew some people that might be willing to help cut it up if I would let them have the wood.
Uh...yeah!
I began to think that maybe I should have held a tree-cutting party. Bring your own chainsaw and keep what you cut. I wouldn't charge anyone for it. That would be like asking money from people who would be helping me.
And I'm sure the word will spread.
The neighbor on the other side of me rents the house there. The real-estate company that owns the house recently cut down a dying tree that would have tumbled onto my property and left the cut wood there. They let me have some for my firepit activities.
And I was curious as to how long that wood would last. Now I have more wood than I ever would have imagined. Or wanted.
The bright side to all this is, there's less grass to cut for now.
NEXT WEEK: Reunited
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