Maple Casualty of the Ice - March 10
The following day, non-essential personnel were given leave by the administration. So I got a play date.
In the morning, a couple department friends and I toured campus and town. I had tried to call my tenants as a courtesy, but the lines were dead to both the house and surrounding neighbors. Not too surprising, what with the rural location at the edge of the county. So we drove down around lunchtime.
We were greeted with the very sad demise of a favorite shade maple on my hillside that had laid gently -- but completely -- upon the living room roof. What started out as a scenic tour of the river valley became a day of landlord house maintenance. Un-mothballing a chainsaw from the attic storage, we spent the day clearing the tree. Upside: my tenants would have plenty of woodstove food for late spring and the next fall.