Miracles and Wonders
A tree stops short
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In the middle of December about two months after the diagnosis, we got one of these
storms. It was a relatively mild one that didn't really affect the roads but the trees at the
edge of the woods in our back yard were over further than I'd ever seen. It was on a
day when I could have gone to work because Debbie was feeling pretty well and was
on the end of the Chemo cycle, but for some reason I just hadn't gone in. At first I was
waiting to be sure that the University wasn't going to close because they have a habit of
making that decision right about the time the employees are arriving so we get the added
fun of making a round trip drive on icy roads. But this time campus stayed open, yet
for some reason I had decided not to go to work anyway.
By about noon Deb was sleeping and I was on the computer and we heard kind of a
knocking noise and then a big splat. We each thought the other had fallen and we
rushed out to see what had happened. After a quick search of the house, we discovered
that a tree in the back yard had fallen from the weight of the ice. The root ball just
pulled out of the soggy ground and over it went. It was about a 35 footer, right on the
edge of the woods and it fell straight at the house. The top (which was bent over from
the ice) hit just below the family room window and the top four feet or so snapped off.
The jagged end of the trunk then poked through the screen and stopped just short of the
glass. So I went to get dressed (yeah, I was still in my pajamas at noon) so I could go
outside and survey the damage. Then we heard another crack as the tree settled a little
further pushing the broken tip right up to the window pane which starting to make that
creepy scratching sound that you hear in horror movies when a tree branch brushes a
window. So I opened the window to give then tree some room in case it settled more
and then I ran out and started sawing off everything that wasn't helping to hold it up.
Within a few minutes I had the trunk shortened and laying all the way down on the
ground. If I had been at work that tree would have broken through the window before I
could have driven home to deal with it, and Deb certainly wasn't well enough to deal
with it on her own or tolerate the stress of being alone when something like that
happened.
So did I stay home from work that day just because I was feeling lazy and occasionally
even sloth pays off, or was this yet another example of how God was watching out for
us. If you've read much of this site I think you can guess which one we believe.
Footnote: The picture of the tree is from the Oklahoma Weather Lab website because I've never taken
any photos of our trees (I can't imagine why not, because they'd make some great shots). So anyway,
to get a real picture of our yard you need to imagine dozens of trees that range from just having the top
curled over, all the way to laying right on the ground like the one shown above
storms. It was a relatively mild one that didn't really affect the roads but the trees at the
edge of the woods in our back yard were over further than I'd ever seen. It was on a
day when I could have gone to work because Debbie was feeling pretty well and was
on the end of the Chemo cycle, but for some reason I just hadn't gone in. At first I was
waiting to be sure that the University wasn't going to close because they have a habit of
making that decision right about the time the employees are arriving so we get the added
fun of making a round trip drive on icy roads. But this time campus stayed open, yet
for some reason I had decided not to go to work anyway.
By about noon Deb was sleeping and I was on the computer and we heard kind of a
knocking noise and then a big splat. We each thought the other had fallen and we
rushed out to see what had happened. After a quick search of the house, we discovered
that a tree in the back yard had fallen from the weight of the ice. The root ball just
pulled out of the soggy ground and over it went. It was about a 35 footer, right on the
edge of the woods and it fell straight at the house. The top (which was bent over from
the ice) hit just below the family room window and the top four feet or so snapped off.
The jagged end of the trunk then poked through the screen and stopped just short of the
glass. So I went to get dressed (yeah, I was still in my pajamas at noon) so I could go
outside and survey the damage. Then we heard another crack as the tree settled a little
further pushing the broken tip right up to the window pane which starting to make that
creepy scratching sound that you hear in horror movies when a tree branch brushes a
window. So I opened the window to give then tree some room in case it settled more
and then I ran out and started sawing off everything that wasn't helping to hold it up.
Within a few minutes I had the trunk shortened and laying all the way down on the
ground. If I had been at work that tree would have broken through the window before I
could have driven home to deal with it, and Deb certainly wasn't well enough to deal
with it on her own or tolerate the stress of being alone when something like that
happened.
So did I stay home from work that day just because I was feeling lazy and occasionally
even sloth pays off, or was this yet another example of how God was watching out for
us. If you've read much of this site I think you can guess which one we believe.
Footnote: The picture of the tree is from the Oklahoma Weather Lab website because I've never taken
any photos of our trees (I can't imagine why not, because they'd make some great shots). So anyway,
to get a real picture of our yard you need to imagine dozens of trees that range from just having the top
curled over, all the way to laying right on the ground like the one shown above
We live in an area that is almost but not quite too far south to get any significant snow.
The upside of this is that we have pretty mild winters but still get an occasional snowfall
to remind us what it was like to live further north. The downside is that when the big
winter storms are rolling through the south, we usually fall in that little pink stripe on the
weather map that's in between the snow and the rain, and that means ice. At least once a
year we get a big ice storm that coats everything with up to a half inch of ice. Power
lines fail, trees snap, the roads are a mess, and the pine trees in our back yard get so
weighted down that the tops bend over until they are touching the ground. It looks like
something out of Doctor Seuss' Whoville stories where all the tree tops curled over like
Dairy Queen ice cream cones.
The upside of this is that we have pretty mild winters but still get an occasional snowfall
to remind us what it was like to live further north. The downside is that when the big
winter storms are rolling through the south, we usually fall in that little pink stripe on the
weather map that's in between the snow and the rain, and that means ice. At least once a
year we get a big ice storm that coats everything with up to a half inch of ice. Power
lines fail, trees snap, the roads are a mess, and the pine trees in our back yard get so
weighted down that the tops bend over until they are touching the ground. It looks like
something out of Doctor Seuss' Whoville stories where all the tree tops curled over like
Dairy Queen ice cream cones.