WILLOW TREE
Well, the neighbors' enormous one hundred foot willow tree finally came down. In our yard. Naturally. The whole darn thing. Broke right off at ground level. I tried to get a tree service to take it, or parts of it, down years ago, but they wouldn't, even though it was hanging over our shed. Willows are nasty to cut and very dangerous for tree cutters. Previous neighbors planted it years ago, but the trunk had grown in our direction, making it a "line tree." I was willing to pay half to get it down since we were the ones in danger, even though I felt it was their tree and not a line tree at all, but the new neighbors always wanted to keep the tree. And I admit that taking the branches down which overhung our yard would have taken ALL the branches off. So it stood. Leaning.

Well, folks, in the Divine miracle department the whole tree--all of it--fell neatly along between our fence and right along the side of the shed. It fills the entire space of about 25 feet in width between the fence and the shed and from the back of the yard to the front of the 70-foot long shed. Neatly. I still can't believe it. Twigs grazed the side of the shed and chipped the edge of one shingle that protruded. Didn't scratch the shed or break any windows. And left a VERY narrow path right along the side of the shed that I can walk along ducking under leafy twigs and stepping on and over broken bits of tree.

If that thing had come down on the shed, it would have crushed it completely.

It missed both of my little Bradford pears except to trim off the side branch of the one pear that had two tops and I've been trying to figure out how I was going to prune off that second top, since I don't do ladders very well. Sheered it right off at the pear's trunk. I think the lilacs along the side of the shed may be toast, but they can be replaced. And if I ever get someone to clean up the mess, I may be surprised at what survived. Lilacs are tough.

At the moment, I'm considering just fighting the poison ivy (the willow was full of it) and ignoring it. Poison ivy spray is cheaper than hiring someone to clean it up.

The tree was loaded with poison ivy that I've been fighting for years with spray since it overhung our yard and dropped berries continually which made a carpet of poison ivy in our yard. A couple of years ago I crossed our fence and cut the vine with clippers since the neighbors wouldn't do anything. One of the vines was four inches in diameter, and another was six! I had to saw them, and I was afraid they'd heal so I sawed chunks out of the vines to prevent that. But they sprout continuously, so if I don't fight it, the whole side yard will be poison ivy.

It always made me nervous even to walk past that tree in a wind. We've had a lot of its limbs come down, but the big ones always landed neatly in a line along the fence even though they weren't pointing that way while they were up in the tree, and I always considered that to be a miracle, but I never ever expected the tree to fall like it did, diagonally at that precise angle. What the tree service refused to do--especially when I whined about my Bradford pears, which they said they wouldn't be able to protect--God did very neatly! Thank you, Lord!

And hey, I don't have to mow that section of yard anymore!