So, I have my new house, which is lovely. And my current--soon to be old--house, which is also lovely (someone Buy It--this is your subliminal message for the day). So, yesterday, I go over to the new house on my way to work to check on things and when I walk out the back door (this being the same door I walked in) I notice there's a cable drooping into the yard. I follow the line of the cable and (finally) notice that there's a really big tree limb that's fallen into the back yard.
Now, there hasn't been a storm or anything and this is a Really Big tree limb so not only do I need to get rid of this big tree limb but I'm a bit worried about the really big tree that it fell off of. Luckily, though it fell across the fence, it didn't do any damage to the fence, so that's a good thing. And the cable that it fell on turns out to be the television cable so that's also good.
So, I go to work and I call a tree removal service and say, can you go over to my new house and tell me what it's going to cost to get rid of this Really Big tree limb and also look at the tree it came off and tell me whether there are going to be more Really Big tree limbs falling off, or maybe like the whole tree falling down.
So, the tree guy goes over and he looks at the Really Big tree limb and the tree it came off and he calls me back and says, that tree is fine--it's not a very good tree, but it's healthy and it's not going to fall down. However, this other--even bigger tree--which is right in your front driveway, right next to your house.....That tree is, like, all hollow and very dangerous and should come down right now if not sooner (in fact, later in our conversation he admits that if it were his tree he wouldn't even want to wait until after the weekend). So I say, oh crap and let me think about it and ok fine just do it (which is about the time he tells me about the not waiting until Monday part).
This morning they brought a bucket truck and a big (and by big I mean really big) boom truck and a chipper and some other truck the function of which I'm not certain. I was gone most of the day but Billie and I walked over there about seven to see how it was going and they had the bucket truck in my driveway and the boom truck in my neighbor's yard and (I swear to god) they had taken down half my neighbor's fence to get the boom truck where they wanted it. They were still there working because, said the crew member I talked to, they wanted to be sure all the dangerous tree parts were done and then they'd finish up tomorrow. While I was watching they took off a limb the size of a medium-sized tree and swung it out over my (new) neighbor's yard--at which point I couldn't bear to watch anymore. I thought, my god, my neighbor is going to hate me with the hate of a thousand suns.
Billie and I continued with our walk and when I got home there was a message from the tree guy and he told me what the guy I talked to at the house told me. He also told me that my neighbor, in fact, loves me because he's been wanting the last four people who owned that house to take out that tree and finally someone actually did it.
We--me, the tree guy, his crew, and probably my new neighbor, although I haven't actually talked to him--think that this is, like, the luckiest thing ever because if I hadn't called them to get rid of the tree limb in my back yard I probably would have put off having anyone look at that tree and it would have fallen on either my house, my neighbor's house or my garage, probably in the winter and probably when it was, like, twenty below outside.
Meanwhile, the Really Big tree limb in the back yard, which started it all, is still there because, you know, it's not actually going anywhere and has already pretty much done all the falling it's going to do.
