I tell you what, I discovered this morning that there's probably nothing (other than the crying of my kiddos) that could pull me out of a groggy half-sleep faster than those three words uttered in such a tone by my normally unflappably calm husband.
"What?" I said
"OH..." he said...clearly struggling for words.
(Seriously?! This is bad!)
"WHAT?" I said. Now my adrenaline is really going.
"WHAT?" I said. Now my adrenaline is really going.
"Our tree fell"
Oh my.
This is what he saw out our window:
Yep. We lost one of our 60-70 year old, 60 feet tall oak trees in the storm that raged through Maryland last night. All things considered, we were really lucky. No one was hurt, the tree didn't fall on a house, and somehow it managed to thread the needle between three vehicles. 
You can see our car here in the foreground. Our neighbors' van you can see behind the branches on the right side of the trunk and there's another vehicle in their driveway on the left side of the trunk. The only one with damage was their van which has a cracked windshield and broken side mirror. Still, is this something anyone wants to see when they open the blinds in the morning?? Much less a family that's about to welcome a new baby in 3 days or fewer?! 
It was quite the dramatic morning! Bill couldn't go to work - clearly we couldn't get out of the driveway! All the neighbors (except the ones across the street of course whose cars were also trapped) volunteered to drive me to the hospital if I went into labor. Bill's immediately on the phone to multiple resources trying to figure out what to do; I'm looking up Baltimore county public works for tree removal phone numbers. You can see our car here in the foreground. Our neighbors' van you can see behind the branches on the right side of the trunk and there's another vehicle in their driveway on the left side of the trunk. The only one with damage was their van which has a cracked windshield and broken side mirror. Still, is this something anyone wants to see when they open the blinds in the morning?? Much less a family that's about to welcome a new baby in 3 days or fewer?!
Our neighbor who works for the county told us to play the pregnancy card and it should move us to the top of the list. I mean, what better time to use it, right? Sure enough, the first thing they told him was, "Well, we have a lot of trees down right now. Don't know when we'll get to you..."
Then he played the pregnancy card. "My wife's less than a week from her due date. She could go into labor anytime."
They were here within the hour. Hooray!
Big Brother was completely excited and thrilled by the entire process. We set up a chair for him to watch the removal process. Here come the cavalry:
He got a little cold after awhile so I made him some hot chocolate to warm up hands and belly:
Thumbs up, Mama! Thanks! Yummy stuff:
Thumbs up, Mama! Thanks! Yummy stuff:
The clean up:
Three!! 
That is...three dump trucks full of debris and they still had to leave the biggest stuff for bigger equipment to pick up tomorrow. We even got treated to a fun log-roll down our sloped driveway (with the bucket of the backhoe poised to stop the forward progress of the enormous pieces of oak!)
That 4 hr adventure was our Monday morning...
What a completely crazy way to start the day!!
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1 comment:
Great post. I can't help but be ammused and I wanted to share. I love getting to know people from other parts of the world. I've seldom left my nitch in rural Missouri. When your blog got to the part about nobody being able to leave, blocked in by the tree and then calling around to find a "tree removal service" I laughed out loud. Around our place everyone owns a chainsaw, my seventy year old grandma has one! If that happened at our house my husband would have been giddy. Within fifteen minutes him, his brother, my dad and my brother would have had that tree in pieces on their trucks. Thanks for giving me a grin this morning. I'm easily amused, I know.
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