A Tree Falls In Brooklyn

CRASH, BOOM, BANG!! I thought the front of the house was falling off! Luckily I paused to extend my goodbye to Pete, my neighbor, before opening his front door and stepping out on the stoop. Had it been a few seconds late, I would have been whacked on the head by a giant branch from the tree outside my house. Yes, the sagging, 12ft. branch just decided to fall off on a sunny Monday afternoon on a quiet block in Brooklyn. I would've added the word "shady" to that description but the front of my house is shady no more. My big tree decided it was time to lose a limb and have the sun shine more on my house. The biggest bummer of all this is I don't have the branches in front of my bedroom window anymore. I never bought curtains for my bedroom because I loved the feeling of sleeping in a tree, watching the birds and squirrels from my bed, seeing the change from full green, to brown orange to bare covered with snow and back again. Oh well, whaddyagonnado?

Fortunately, as you can see from the pics, no cars were damaged and no one was walking on the sidewalk at the time. It could have been a lot worse. The only major damage was one of Pete's plastic window boxes go trashed. But we did have a problem-it was blocking the sidewalk and needed to be removed pronto. Don't you just love a city with 311? Within moments, Pete, myself and a few other neighbors were on the phone to get the Parks Services to come chop the giant branch up. Of course bureacracy as it is, they'd put in a report and they'd be out there within 30days. Yes that's all I need is a huge branch blocking my doorway for a month. We called the Fire Department instead and a crew of hotties were over before you could say "TIMBER!".

Is it just me or is there a certain sexual electricity whenever the NYFD shows up? If there's a house burning down, I'm looking at the guys in action rather the flames shooting through a roof. Is it the baggy pants and navy blue shirts? What is it about them that drives me crazy (and some of you blogophiles too). Well, they roared up, sirens blaring and got right to work. They assessed the situation and then whipped it out, Oh their chainsaw I mean. Licketysplit, they chopped up that branch into and threw the pieces of the once bedroom curtain at the curb, taking up 3-4 parking spaces. Afterwards, they assessed the situation of another precariously dangling branch which could come down at any moment. They decided to bring it down. BUT there was a slight problem. My neighbor Joe's car was in the way. We called his wife who came quickly from work nearby and moved the black behemoth, clearing the way for a saw and pull job. I'm sure hadn't they done that, the branch would've fallen off in the middle of the night, ruining the car and blocking the street.

They wrapped rope around the branch in question and with a gentle buzzing of the branch, cut and pulled, cut and pulled until the thing came crashing down. Let me tell you, how hot was that to see NYFD in action. Buzz, pull, buzz, pull, buzz, pull CRAAACK, BOOM!! That's how the mighty second branch came down. These guys didn't mess around. Actually they were playing hard to get, all business and no response to my whitty banter and jokes. I had already pegged a few of them as potential husbands but the glare of their wedding rings shone in my eye like the sun into my bedroom now. With some more buzzing, the second branch was thrown on top of the first one and our local fire boys were on their way. Pete and I circled the branch heap to check out the wood for possible usage as furniture or art projects of some kind. I have enough wood in my yard and Pete couldn't figure out anything immediatley so we left it there for now.

A Parks Services guy, another hottie, came by a few days later to assess the tree and told me it may have to come down. I love my tree and the shade it gives us, but I don't want my house damaged when the things falls over in a high wind. Fortunately he said they'd put another one in that will grow staighter so we won't have a problem with top-heavy branches like on this tree. We'll see. It may be 30 days before all this comes down so for now I'm going to enjoy of what's left of my tree that grows in Brooklyn.