Now THAT was exciting!

April 28th was one windy spring day here in Ottawa! Wind gusts reached 100km/hr. It was so windy that I actually stood outside for a few minutes staring at the top branches of our front tree, watching them sway in the wind, amazed at how windy it was. Later that day, I was sitting at the dining room table when I heard the loudest crack I'd ever heard in my life. I looked outside my front window and saw this:

I'm not sure how, but the tree managed to miss our house completely and it damaged only our neighbour's eavestrough.

Even though Bella wasn't big enough (nor the branches low enough) for her to ever have climbed this tree, I had to console her for over an hour. (Yes, she was crying and heartbroken for a full hour. Can you say D R A M A ?) She said she was so sad because she used to like to play hide and seek behind the tree trunk but now that part of it has fallen, she won't be able to anymore. I convinced her that there were plenty of big trees in the neighbourhood for that purpose, and later that same day, she had no trouble playing and climbing all over the fallen tree with her good friend Mel.

That giant maple tree, we figure, was about 50 years old, and while she sure was beautiful, especially in the fall, she was a lot of work.

This tree left us with thousands of leaves to rake each autumn, not to mention never being able to grow a descent front lawn. A few days after the tree fell, a city worker knocked on our door and informed us that the tree was no longer safe as it stood, and that it must be removed. On May 3rd, Bella and I watched (for the whole one hour and 9 minutes that it took), for 6 city workers and 2 trucks to take her down and clean her up.

I can't help but feel somewhat naked when I look at this photo, and a little bit sad, too. But on the bright side, a whole bunch of time just freed up for us each autumn! (And all of our neighbours still have their trees, so we'll still have huge leaf piles to rake and jump into with the kids!)