Cowering Beneath the Tree of Doom

My wife and I are living in a war-zone! Except we're under fire from our trees, not people! They've turned on us, declaring war, and determined to destroy us! Just like a crappy nature attacks film from the '70's! I halfway expect to see Ray Milland tooling around in our yard in a wheelchair, ranting and railing against "those damn trees!"

Whew.

So. Not too long ago, I told you about our neighbors' tree toppling into our yard and taking out the fence. You guys remember that, right? Hang on a minute...I've got it around here somewhere. Here!

We considered that a precautionary tale. For some time, a huge lumbering beast of a silver maple tree has hovered over our neighborhood, dropping heavy-ass limbs left and right in our backyard with wild abandon. One of the biggest trees in the 'hood, it looms over our house in an extremely threatening way.

My wife decided to call in an "arborist." What is an "arborist," I hear some of you asking? It's an extremely overpaid "tree expert" who tells you if the tree is sick or dying, that's what an arborist is. (Actually this is the second arborist to come out and investigate the tree; several years back we hired another arborist {taking out a second mortgage to do so} to look at the tree. Through intense{and costly! There went my daughter's college fund}scientific analysis, he said {with a very smug arborist's smirk} "the tree might be slowly dying, but it won't happen in your lifetime." I suppose he must've thought I was at death's door or whatever, but let's get back to the here and now, shall we?).

So our new arborist says, "Hmmmm. Looks like you've got some fallen limbs." (See what I mean? Science!)

"What do you recommend, Mr. Arborist?" I ask.

"Well...I think it's got some dead limbs up high, but the whole tree is still kicking. Let me get my guys out here to trim it up."

ZZZZZZZZ. THUD! KRAK! KABOOM! BUZZZZZZZ! "AIEEEEEEEE!"

On and on it went, with sawing and swearing and climbing and things breaking on our deck until they collected their big fat pay-check.

A couple of weeks later, we hear a big thud. Another giant branch had taken the plunge, mercifully sparing the lives of us and our dogs.

The arborist comes back out (my wife has him on speed-dial, I think), always very stealthy in the backyard, never bothering to let us know beforehand.

He writes, "Well...huh. That tree is deteriorating a whole lot faster than I suspected."

Annnnnnddddddd, that's why we pay him the big bucks.

So he looks at his guys' schedule and says he'll let us know when they can come back out.

A couple of Sundays ago, my wife and I hear a huge crash. The Tree of Doom split off yet another huge-ass branch, this one destroying our fence and landing in the other neighbors' yard, barely missing their carport.

Huh. 

So, we sorta stress the urgency of the sitch with the arborist. "For God's sake, hurry man, we're gonna die!"

Again, the wrecking crew come back and take down a third of the tree. Leaving behind the largest, tallest portion: the bulk of the tree that's going to topple onto us, and squish us into pancakes while we sleep. I'm almost afraid to sleep upstairs. Those trees have it in for us.

It's not like we've done anything to them. I mean, they really should be raging against global warming and the ensuing, crazy wind-storms. Or maybe the creeping disease that took out our neighbors' tree. How about the extremely wealthy arborist who's making a career out of taking our tree down?

Just don't kill us!

What have we learned here? 1) Trees can be extremely ruthless, merciless and revenge-minded; 2) Move to a neighborhood where the trees are but saplings and leave your grandkids to worry about it; 3) If you have a child, steer them into arboristry. You'll be set for life.

Speaking of nature run amok, there's a whole bunch of it on the loose in my horror short story collection, Twisted Tales from Tornado Alley. Let's see...we've got killer giant spiders, sentient plants with murder on the mind, a lovelorn Bigfoot, an entire underground community of mutated monsters, and lots more. Take a look at it here. But for God's sake, don't tell the trees!

Oooooklahoma, where the winds comes sweepin'...SHUT UP!

Well, I imagine there aren't too many Okies singing that beloved song now.

(Due to bad weather, filmmaker Richard Griffin's jaw-dropping interview will conclude next week.)
 
Not long ago, a devastating, incredible wind storm blew through eastern Oklahoma. Some of you, not from the Midwest, might be scoffing, saying, "Oh my, Stuart, what's wrong? Afraid your hair will muss?"

A) I don't have any hair; B) people underestimate the power of wind.

How strong was it? It blew over a semi on the Turner Turnpike. Over 87,000 people were without power. One of the water suppliers lost some of their pumps, putting their customers on rations. A mobile home with a dog inside it was flattened (miraculously, the dog's okay). Finally, everywhere you look, trees are down, houses destroyed, people's lives in turmoil. And the local tree trimmer guys are set for life. The remnants of a war-torn battle zone.

Sadly, my inlaws were affected. The storm plowed through Broken Arrow, next to Tulsa, in Nature's indiscriminate and bullying way. (All photos are from their yard).

They live on a vastly wooded three acres and over half of their trees are down, some having fallen on the house. Karma smiled on them, though. Miraculously, the house is undamaged. My mother-in-law was out when the storm blew through but my father-in-law was at home. Apparently, he'd had no idea it'd happened. Maybe he had his TV headphones on. I'm sure when he went outside, though, he was in for a shock. Anyway...maybe it's good karma paying them back for the nice things they do. But the clean-up, ay-yi-yi!

My wife packed up her loppers and headed down. Her brother brought the chainsaw, his wife supplied tea and lemonade making skills. Unfortunately, I couldn't go because I wasn't supposed to make long car trips. Recovering from "Major Surgery," don't you know. (Whew. Dodged that bullet).

But the clean-up crew could only do so much. One of the downed trees was thicker than a giant's thumb. No chainsaws could even begin to bite the bark. 

My inlaws had an estimate. Crikey. I need to get into that line of work. Sadly, the guy says he'll have to cut down another tree to get his truck into the backyard. Headache after heartache for them.

Still, the house is intact. So is their health. Unlike many other Oklahomans.

Never underestimate the power of wind. You can't do anything about it, I'm just sayin'. And, people, for the love of God, stop singing that happy song about Oklahoma wind!