TIMBER!

So, yesterday I mowed the lawn, as I do on occasion in the summer. Usually, I give the area next to the cottage a pretty cursory going over, but yesterday I was more thorough, mowing around the old tree several times and up and down next to the path.

This morning, when I woke up, this is what I saw:


When I went up to inspect, it was even more dramatic:

I am somewhat convinced that it was only the tall grass around the tree that was keeping it upright, and once I mowed it down, the tree lost all its magic powers of survival and had no choice but to topple over.

Or maybe the tree was just dead. (While there wasn't excessive wind last night, there was a lot of rain, on top of a lot of rain a few days ago, and it's generally pretty soggy up there anyway.)

In any case, it was the best possible scenario if a tree has to fall down in the middle of the night. It didn't fall in the direction of the cottage and, almost miraculously, it didn't even wake anyone up, including the tenant who says he is a light sleeper.

And Alex and his chainsaw came to the rescue, so by late in the afternoon, the accident zone was peaceful again:

That is now the third dead tree on my property that's gone in the past few years--the birch tree in the garden I wrote about at the beginning of the blogathon, a second birch tree on the way up to the cottage (that Alex basically just pulled over with his bare hands a few weeks later) and this one. Since I'm a believer in things happening in threes, I'm hoping this means that all of my remaining trees will stay put for awhile.

In the meantime, maybe the pretty Japanese maple that was hidden behind the tree that's now gone will have more room to flourish: