Fun Amongst The Oaks

I'm telling you, it's nothing but fun here Amongst The Oaks. Friday night whilst eating dinner, we heard an ominous ripping sound and looked out the kitchen window just in time to see a large branch falling from our neighbor's oak tree. It landed in our driveway with a crunch and a thud as we stared at each other wide eyed. We ran out to discover that it had glanced off their roof and the fence, bounced off Teen2's window sill and wall, and luckily caused little damage. But it was almost dark and too late to do anything about it.

Saturday morning I got out there with loppers and a pruning saw and started to clean up the mess. The Lord of the Manor had shoulder surgery not long ago and isn't really supposed to do heavy work yet. We don't have a chain saw at home and we couldn't get out of the driveway because of the mess, so what else could we do?

So I worked and worked with my little saw, and we ended up with all this fire wood. We can use it to cook chickens next summer. And if you believe that....well...you shouldn't! Actually we dragged the two largest logs back to the patio and the Lord of the Manor drove down to the shop and got a power saw to cut them up.

Here's the damage. This dent on the window sill and some scrapes on the wall.
And this cracked area on the stucco down by the foundation.
And here's the stub left on the tree. The branch was about 9" across. These valley oaks sometimes drop limbs in the fall when they are heavy with acorns, or in the summer if they are over-watered, but we've never seen one fall in May on an un-irrigated tree. I hope this is a fluke.

Well that's all the crazy news from here *literally* Amongst The Oaks.