I love trees. Trees are one of the reasons we bought this house in the first place. In fact, people who walk in the door for the first time have commented, more than once, “It’s like a treehouse,” because the main floor of the house is so far above the canyon and is set within thousands of trees.
But trees, as beautiful as they are, are living things that respond to their environment. And the Northern California environment has been horribly dry for the past three years. When the rain finally began falling in December, it felt like a gift, and it was. But all around the Bay Area, trees that had been weakened by the drought began falling. This one, in our side yard, finally succumbed during Christmas week.
Fortunately, no one was hurt. Just the week before, my son and his friend had walked down these stairs and had gone exploring in the canyon. The tree fell right across the path. As you can see, it broke our fence, but it was never a very nice fence anyway. It also tore up the rain gutter, but aside from that there was no damage to the house.
We just feel grateful that this tree fell the way it did, at the time it did, with no one in the way!
