Trees falling!

We live in town, but have lots of pines around us.  They are very tall but with shallow root systems so they fall more often than is comfortable for people living under them....so last night we were in the kitchen and heard this incredible din--sounded like things falling in an earthquake or a crash or something.  I look outside and see pine cones raining down on the patio, rolling down the stairs, dust everywhere.  What the heck?  Took me a moment to realize a pine tree had crashed! We have a building in our back yard with a swim spa in it.  We JUST finished the building, had put up gutters and are getting it painted.  I went running up to see what kind of damage was done--if our building or pool was crushed....

We LUCKED OUT!!!  The tree came crashing down from our neighbor's house, hit another pine in our yard and took out that one, and crashed literally inches from the building.  Some branches even hit the windows and skylight-and didn't even crack one of them.  The only damage was a bent gutter.  Whew.  

Oh my goodness!!    I see the tools still sitting out there in the 2nd picture.  That is SO close!!  I'm glad you didn't get any serious damage!

When we bought our property we had to take about 15 pines down that were dying or already dead.  It was a shame and made the elderly lady on one side of us unhappy; but for both of our safety it was necessary.  We had a blizzard that first winter before we took the trees down and one did come down on the house. Fortunately with the weight of the snow it just leaned on the roof first and then eventually broke lower down.  That next spring we hired another neighbor to remove the trees that needed to come down. Which was most of them!  It's very flat here; so mostly they just made a thunk.  But plenty of pine cones were left behind too!  It worked out well for the guy who removed them though; he heats with wood!  And apparently pine cones make great tinder! 

MoochNNoodles said:

Oh my goodness!! 

  I see the tools still sitting out there in the 2nd picture.  That is SO close!!  I'm glad you didn't get any serious damage!

When we bought our property we had to take about 15 pines down that were dying or already dead.  It was a shame and made the elderly lady on one side of us unhappy; but for both of our safety it was necessary.  We had a blizzard that first winter before we took the trees down and one did come down on the house. Fortunately with the weight of the snow it just leaned on the roof first and then eventually broke lower down.  That next spring we hired another neighbor to remove the trees that needed to come down. Which was most of them!  It's very flat here; so mostly they just made a thunk.  But plenty of pine cones were left behind too!  It worked out well for the guy who removed them though; he heats with wood!  And apparently pine cones make great tinder! 

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Yeah, my mom collects pine cones all the time for her wood-burning stove. Most of the ones I've seen from this tree are green, though.  Sounds like you got lucky with your downed tree, too!  

Glad to see you had no damaged to your house than the gutter.Glad you are ok.

Wow! That was close. Glad you're OK and the house is too.
I remember growing up we burned a lot of pine cones in our fireplace. We had a lot of pines around there too and the cones are great for burning.

Wow! I'm glad you are ok! We had a lot of pine branches come down after the blizzard in February, but not the whole tree.

What a difference a day makes!  The tree service was here all day yesterday cleaning up.  We'll sure have plenty of pine firewood next winter!  

Hey it's good that you can make use of the wood anyway!

Wow! LOL  It looks like it changed your view of the neighbors house too.

That is definitely too close for comfort. Glad everyone is unharmed and the damage was minimal. 

I looks really good. I don't have to worry about problems like this. Thank God.