bye-bye Bradford

We were all braced for a SEVERE thunderstorm last night. The warnings were predicting wind gusts of up to 80 m.p.h., damaging hail, and lots of lightning. We took the hanging plants down, pulled the flag in, turned the patio chairs upside down so they wouldn't blow away, and generally braced for impact.

Then it hit. We had one little microburst of strong wind, and it started raining. Not a downpour, just a nice steady rain. There was some lightning in the distance and some rumbling thunder. And that was about it. Bummer.

Fast forward to this morning - I guess that one microburst of gusting wind was stronger than I thought. We woke up to see half a tree in the backyard.



We had talked and talked about cutting the trees down - because neither of us like Bradford Pears. Guess nature decided to help us out and speed along the process. It's hot work to clean it up this way, but I'm not going to complain. Now we just have additional incentive to get rid of the rest and plant a REAL tree! I'm thinking a nice maple or oak...

Or maybe leave just one tree (but NOT a Bradford Pear) and landscape the hillside with some giant sized rocks. Obviously I really have no idea how to make that area look good.

Time to go load up the truck and take the tree-pieces to be turned into mulch. Any ideas when it might storm again? Maybe we'll get lucky and it will take down the rest of the tree!