Treed

We sat down to baked beans on toast Saturday noon, while above us in the atmosphere the TV weather pattern prediction played out to a T. A "low" to the northeast and a "high" to the southwest were yearning toward each other, forming a funnel over mid-New England.  The funnel sucked and squeezed high winds in gusts across Massachusetts. Suddenly . . . Crack! on top the embankment behind our house. We ran to the deck, but couldn't see much but a fairly large fallen limb, hooked in a tree. (I was too startled to think of taking a photo at this point.)

But looks were deceiving. That limb was only a side issue. 

In one gust of wind, a yard transformed.

In fact, the gale had lopped off half of one of our tall pines and dropped it in our upper neighbor's yard. Roy climbed to the Goodfellows', and the above scene is part of what he saw.

The crucial questions: Was anyone hurt? And their house?

(All photos for this post by Roy H. Barnacle.)

This has to count as a near-miracle. That huge treetop only grazed the Goodfellows' house, because its fall was partially interrupted by collision with the crotch of a dead tree. It left more debris than damage, and no one was hurt.  And that mattress you see? I suspect the joyous kid-shouts we'd been hearing all weekend emanated from a big outdoor jumping spree on Mom and Dad's cast-off mattress.

We went back to our lunch after re-visiting the scene, uneasily aware that the winds were still gusting, and that the remnant trunk of the damaged pine looked highly susceptible leaning toward our house. Searching for a calm expectancy of good despite this accident, I remembered -- and held to -- "He holds the winds in his fists."* Sure enough, only a few minutes later the remaining twin trunk, the one leaning toward our house, cracked off. But -- and this might also be chronicled as a miracle (though you and I know better):  Instead of falling toward our house, à la gravity, that huge trunk fell laterally along the  property line, taking down nothing in its fall but a length of Attilla's fence (remind me to tell you about that critter another day).

Second trunk, suddenly horizontal.

Within minutes, Bob Goodfellow and a couple of other men were moving aside the smaller branches. Soon, their chain saws were abuzz, and before dark fell, the yard was clear and the fence back up. I was so impressed with this can-do attitude. Yes, Get it done!

But there were still a 12-foot stump, the second trunk, and plenty of smaller pieces on our property.

Top part of pine stump.

Pine debris scattered along ridge.

We left an "au secours!" message with Stumpy's tree care service. Roy had had a number of overgrown trees removed from his lot a couple of years ago, but this new blowdown will give us an unplanned opportunity.

The silver linings of this incident, for us, began to appear right away.  One, there are still trees large enough, old enough and strategically placed to be a threat to our house. We'll clear them out, replacing some with smaller trees or shrubs. Two, as the sun rose Sunday above the ridge, we could see by the dawn's early light that our lawn (read "gardens") will be receiving more direct sunlight this summer. Considering the rising cost of a trip to the grocery store, this is not a bad time to make backyard veggies and flowers more readily grown.

Ironically, this event happened the last weekend our house will be on the market (unless it sells pronto -- you snooze, you lose, you wannabe Waylanders).

 * "The world would collapse without Mind, without the intelligence which holds the winds in its grasp."  Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, p. 209. AND: "Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended? who hath gathered the wind in his fists? who hath bound the waters in a garment? who hath established all the ends of the earth? what is his name, and what is his son's name, if thou canst tell?"  Proverbs 30.  Thus indeed saith the Lord.

We join the single-cup craze

My mother loved my first husband, and I know for sure she would love the new one, too. How do I know? The answer may as well begin with our Keurig . . .

Roy's wish for a single-cup coffeemaker has popped up regularly during the 2 and a half years I've known him. His desire for the gadget was tempered by needing other things first (engagement and weddings rings, etc.), but I knew it was going to surface sometime. There would be a decisive conjunction of store display, shopper, and debit card -- and there was, just last week. What loosened his stern resolve to postpone the purchase was another conjunction, our birthdays, which are just 5 days apart in early February.

He came home from grocery shopping at BJ's with that eager-to-please, tentative yet hopeful look husbands have when they have bought something that might be rated out-of-turn by the family bookkeeper. In this case, it was a big, colorful box containing a Keurig.

We worked together to unbox and mantle the new machine.

Setting the clock.

The reason for buying it at BJ's was the array of coffee and tea samples included. Soon, he made his choice and popped in the first cup. Voila:

Testing, testing . . .

The verdict?

A smile.  M-m-m, good.

But what does this have to do with Roy and my mother, two friends who have not yet met?

Just this:  After the first euphoric cuppa, Roy had to admit that the drink, though tasty, had not been hot enough. He had had to nuke it to get it right.

My long-deceased mother never enjoyed coffee from her friends' coffeemakers, because no home machine ever got it hot enough to suit her taste. In fact, and this is where their future friendship may have to accommodate a difference, her ultimate home brew was water BOILED in a kettle on the stove, to which she added a teaspoon of (hold the groan, Roy and fellow brewed-lovers) INSTANT COFFEE.

I wonder if Roy will take the tepid Keurig back to BJ's. You might stay tuned to see if he also takes me back where he found me, for the same afternoon we set up the Keurig, he discovered my $3 single-cup coffeemaker on our shelf -- a jar of INSTANT DECAFFEINATED COFFEE.