...and i'll huff and i'll puff and i'll...

...blow your tree tree down!!  the lone tree in our backyard has always had a bit of a westward list-- but not like this.

on this past monday evening a severe thunderstorm blew threw little a-town.  a rare torrential downpour moved through rapidly.  the rain was horizontal pushed from the vertical by near hurricane strength winds.  reports have the winds gusting to 78 mph;  and i, for one, beleive they were every bit that strong.

as the storm raged i looked out the patio doors amazed that the panes at the top of the french doors were wet. i saw something odd; and i asked myself "has that tree always leaned that far over"?  after the storm passed i went out to check things out and indeed the tree was leaning quite noticeably.  There has been a bit of rot at the base for a while but on closer inspection i saw that the rot involved at least half the circumference of the bole.  as you can see i have braced it up after a fashion.  the job this weekend will be to see if i can somehow push it back into a more upright position. or if worse comes to worse, decide that it has to come down. i'm thinking that it will be the latter but i guess we'll see. 

wish me, and the tree, good luck.

aio