A tree grew at Woodhaven

I have no idea how I felt about it as a child, but I know for a fact that as an adult, wind makes me very nervous. I think it’s the responsibility. With every gust, I hear dollar signs.

There was plenty of warning about Friday’s wind storm. Whatever hatches we had were battened. Mostly this meant making sure the hot tub cover was latched and taking down a metal pineapple “Welcome” plaque on our porch that bangs against the siding with an annoying lack of rhythm. Everything else was winterized weeks ago. We thus happily settled into the living room with laptops and kittens and Christmas music.

It was all cozy and gusty and nerve-wracking until about 11:00pm when suddenly the Christmas tree went dark and the music halted and the laptop screens dimmed. We waited for a minute or so in the darkness to see if everything would surge back to life. No such luck. So we raided the Emergency Cabinet for flashlights and went around the house turning off all the now dark lights that we recalled had been on just moments before. Along the way, our office was lit up with that eerie blue glow of a transformer blowing somewhere in the valley below us. Fir boughs danced all around outside, both attached and unattached to trees. Figuring we were in for a long, cold, dark, noisy night, we summoned our 25lbs worth of warm kittens and hunkered down in our bedroom.

We managed to sleep despite the clamor of trains running through our yard. At some point, I woke up and noticed there was a glow coming from our living room. “I think the lights are back on,” I said to 56% of the warm kittenness. I looked at the clock to see what time it was, forgetting it would be flashing 12:00. The clock was dark. Other electronics were dark, too. So what was that light?

Just as I was contemplating getting up to investigate, the light swooped around the bedroom and a car engine was finally audible over the wind. Our newspaper had just been delivered. So, apparently it was sometime between 4:00am and 5:00am. Odd that Judi’s headlight beams were in the wrong place and lingered for so long. Yes, I am often awake in bed when the paper is delivered so I know these things. Oh, well. Back to hunkering.

It was quiet when we woke up and confirmed the power was still out. It might have been about 8:00am or so. We lingered for awhile, knowing that the house would be cold. “Well, time to go see if anything happened.”

Rob was pulling on a sweatshirt when I called out from the dining room, “Oh, my! Our tree fell!” And yes, I really do think I said, “Oh, my!” Either that or “Oh, dear!” Either way, it was a strangely understated reaction to seeing the entire root system of a beloved 20-year-old plum tree upended, muddy, and vertical.

As Rob rushed towards where my voice had come from, I rushed to the other side of the house to peer out the window at another beloved 20-year-old tree, this one a giant Christmas fir. I let out my breath when I saw it firmly in place, making the now topless smaller pine tree about 100ft away hardly worth mentioning.

Pulling on our outside clothes, Rob and I spent the next half hour or so slowing walking around Woodhaven, assessing damage and changes: One tree down, one tree snapped, one hot tub cover mechanism lifted, one slightly bent garden fence, several random bucket pieces scattered about, and one truck bed liner visiting from somewhere to the east. So we were left with really just one project and it would involve a chain saw. And a tractor. And chain. And a really awesome neighbor with all three.

It was beautiful to watch Rob and Tim work together. Both engineering minds, they discussed options, choke points, clamps, and torque. In the bitter cold and sloshing around in our waterlogged yard (the plum tree’s nemesis), the two men managed to liberate all the branches, dislodge the trunk and root ball, preserve a circular brick planter, and transport the trunk and root ball a football field’s length away to our burn pile. We are gonna have one heck of a weenie roast come summer, let me tell you.

Sending Tim off to another neighbor’s fallen tree with repeated thank yous and three bottles of homemade wine, Rob and I spent the rest of the afternoon hauling long branches to the burn pile (Rob) and salvaging about 150 iris bulbs from inside the brick planter (me). Although the power returned about 12 hours after it had gone out (due to an 80ft fir tree landing on a power line about a half-mile away), our porch lights were not quite sufficient as the sun set. So there we were, for the second time in our stewardship of Woodhaven, standing in the rain in the dark finishing up a muddy project – Rob focused and pleasant, me supportive and aiming the flashlight.

The loss of the plum tree is heartbreaking. After posting pictures on Facebook last night, a number of friends at church today offered their sincere condolences. It was a simply spectacular tree. But I am comforted by six years’ worth of pictures of it in various seasons and states of bloom. And by the knowledge that we will plant a replacement next spring. And by the anticipation of watching Beautiful Plum Tree 2.0 grow over the next 20 years. And by the increasing understanding that life is change and acceptance and moving on with gratitude for what was and hope for what could be. But I still don't like the wind.