The night of the dericho (the huge storm that took out power for so many), I noted that the fireflies and frogs were out in full force just half an hour after the storm hit. As I posted here, the storm went from dead-calm to dead-calm in less than 30 minutes! I joked to my wife at the time that everything seemed to be back to normal already, but that these firefles and frogs were imported from Maryland!
Now that I've begun cleaning up the debris in my back yard, I've learned that the casualty count among my trees is higher than I thought.
The large pine shown in the photo below initially snapped a smaller pine. You can see that. But it completed its fall later, taking out the non-pine (an elm, maybe? I'm not a tree person.) that you can see in the picture.
This weekend, while cutting and bundling branches, I found more damage. When the large tree came down, it took out two more of the possible-elms, both on the far left of my yard.
More significantly, I found another large pine (as big as the first) that has trunk damage and a disturbing lean (10 degrees, at least). I don't know if it was hit by the first tree. It could have been. It is now leaning against a mid-sized pine, and I think that's the only reason it didn't fall.
This second pine will MOSTLY land in my neighbor's yard when it comes down. It looks to be in line with my neighbor's back-yard playground, so I'm very concerned. I think that the next signifcant wind that makes the smaller tree move side to side will bring the large tree down on that playground! So I need to tell my landlord... and then warn the neighbors.
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