I was working on my computer yesterday afternoon when the children came running in.  They told me that a large tree had just fallen across the road.  They told me that they heard it crack and fall and that the electric wires were shaking.   I looked out to where they were pointing.  The tree could not have picked a worse place to fall.

On our road, a few hundred feet from our house is a hill.  I don’t let my children ride their bikes in the street because cars always come flying over the hill and it’s very dangerous.   Well… the tree had fallen towards the top of the hill about twenty feet from the crest.  So anybody that came speeding over the hill would be seriously hurt because this was a big, old tree.

I immediately picked up the phone and called the police and informed them of the situation.

By this point, the children had notified Jim and we all jumped into the sprinter.  I was bummed because it all happened so fast, I didn’t even think to grab my cell phone or camera to take a photo.  In fact, I still had our home phone in my hand and the children were really confused why I had brought it along. LOL

We pulled up and put on the flashers and once we realized the electric wires were intact I sent Brett up over the hill to flag down any approaching traffic. 

There was already another neighbor there moving some of the branches, so we pitched right in.  

Within another 3 minutes, three more neighbors joined the party and one of them had brought his chain saw.  The owner of the property on which the tree had stood was one of the newcomers.  When he showed up I quipped, “Can’t you control your trees?”  We all chuckled.

We were all working diligently when the police arrived.  He had to drive up and over one of the neighbor’s yards to get to the top side of the hill.  He parked with the lights on and stopped the rest of the traffic (which was good, because the one car that had been driving, did slow down with Brett waving her arms, but didn’t stop completely til he saw us and the tree).

It took all of us about 20 minutes to get everything cut up and cleared off the road.  Fortunately the tree had been dead for a while so it was lighter. Two push brooms even appeared so we could sweep off the road.

We had a nice joke about this being what it took to get together a Block Party.  The owner of the property asked everyone what he could pay us, and we just all shook our heads and said we were glad to help.  (I thought about making a joke about letting the children swim in his pool as a thank you, but decided my joke about the tree was  enough.)

I’m really going to miss this place when we move to Scottsburg.  We’ve been really blessed with our neighbors here.  Fortunately, we’ve got awesome neighbors in Scottsburg too!