Do you ever post a photo and wonder if you’ve already used it in a previous post? That well might be the case with this one. (I used the Hipstamatic App on my iPhone for this neat, vintage look.) Since we are supposed to have 1 to 3 inches of snow today and freezing rain, I thought some cheery flowers were in order.

The tree is down. I left the house at 9:00 and stayed away until about 3:00. Since I spent the time away from a cottage at a huge mall, I was suffering from mall burnout. I actually dislike malls intensely, but I had to go to the Apple Store and the nearest one to us is….you guessed it….in a mall. By the time I had some lunch and took care of business, my eyes were stinging and the lighting was getting to me. I kept in touch with Don all day.

Call one:    The branches are all down and they are meticulous about clean-up.
Call two:     They’re on a lunch break.
Call three:  They’re back and are taking down the trunk.
Call four:    You’d better stall a bit if you don’t want to get upset. Get some lunch.
Call five:     Still taking down the tree.
Call six:        It’s down, you can come home.

So I drove up the driveway and saw the massive trunk in pieces all over the yard. I cried a bit. It was shocking but, truth be told, I spent a lot of time preparing myself and had reconciled myself to it. The yard looks even more barren, as there is mud everywhere, and the willow tree helped to mask it. I didn’t take any pictures. I recorded Hurricane Irene’s destruction of our trees last fall.  I don’t need to do it a second time.

But, what can you do? It had to come down. The tree was easily 90 – 100′ high and it was huge. The 3 guys who took it down worked tirelessly and cheerfully from 9 in the morning until 7 that night. It was a lot of money for us but, in reality, a very good deal considering the size of the tree and the amazing job they did.

And in the glass half-full department, I was doing some work in the guest room/office which looks out on the front yard and noticed that I could see the mountains and creek from the window. We’d never had that view before because of the tree.

Let’s see, what else is positive? I won’t have to clean up endless branches after a wind storm.

And we no longer have to worry about it falling on our house or our neighbor’s house. And we worried about that a lot.

Our neighbors must be sick of hearing the noise of machinery around this place. It’s been a noisy two weeks. And an emotional two weeks.

My plan for today? Laze around. Avoid looking out the front window. Dream about my garden. Crochet. Read.

What’s your plan for the day?