WIDOW-MAKER DOWN



For several years there's been a leaner to the left of my path's entrance to the woods. Surveying it from every angle, we knew it would come across the path. [...Of course, doesn't every tree fall across my path?] It becomes automatic that on a windy day I watch that the dead branches don't fall as I'm passing that area of the trail. If very windy, I'll walk through the upper cow pasture, praying that Bear doesn't have something fall on him, while Polly cuts through the field with me. Bear got stung by the electric fence. Only once tells most animals to beware. Polly's been fortunate, or knows how to enter and exit the fields.

When it's windy, the leaner would squeak out its message of warning. I figured the sway of the trees would wear away at the part of the tree or the branches it leaned upon, and that's how it would fall.

Today it came thundering down, while Tom witnessed it from the back steps. On close observance I could see that it cracked about a third up from where the bottom of the broken tree rested, causing the top part to drop into the ground below, then flop down across the trail, taking small branches with it.

I had been to the Vet's to get Bear's stitches out. He had some plastic surgery done on his lower lip which had cocker spaniel crevices which caught his spit, and fermented into infection, causing a smell that fouled his breath more than any other dog I knew and loved. So, my gut feeling was right... we found the cause. It was excised, and 13 days later, today, the stitches were removed. When we got home, I found Tom's note about the tree fall. He'd gone hunting of course.... He's a Pennsylvanian, after all. Looking at the note, I thought, gads... we could have been taking our morning walk when it happened. But seeing how it fell, I think it would have given me heart-stopping warning. I am glad I no longer have to worry about that tree.

I had heard that dead stands were called "widow-makers." And when Tom and I were campaigning for his bid for Commissioner, we went door to door. We had a list of registered voters, and at one house after introducing ourselves, we asked the woman who answered the door, if her husband was home as well. She simply said, "I'm sorry. I haven't taken him off the voter's registration list yet. He got killed." Usually a widow says, "He died..." or "He's no longer with us." I said, "Oh, I am so sorry to hear that. Was he in an accident?" She said, "A tree fell on him when he was in the woods." It was that way I found out that it could really happen. So, I don't want to take any chances... those dead stands, or even dead branches could also be 'widower' makers.