Early in the evening of January 26, 2019, my life is interrupted by a notification on my iPad from Instagram informing me a new photo is available. After a few clicks there are Sophie and Mason in his Seattle backyard all dressed up about to head off to the Winter Ball.
Sophie and Mason
Inspiring photo I’m thinking. I set up the tripod, change a couple of items of clothing, twist the little woman’s arm (or did she twist mine?) and a few minutes later a second photo of the evening is produced. [Warning! Warning! Passive voice used. I’m not ‘spozed to do that, right?]
There was something about the pants Mason was wearing. Couldn’t resist a photo response.
It turns out that Mason saw our photo before he saw his own, and it wasn’t obvious to him that Chris and I were just trying to look like him and Sophie.
Dad Bobby figured the situation out pretty quickly and sent appropriate photos to appropriate people right away.
John asked me couldn’t I have even ironed my pants?
My jams? I asked back. These jams have been in my wardrobe for years but they’re not as old as Mason.
Lotsa likes to mom Michelle for posting photo of S&M on Instagram; lotsa friendly smartass email replies to me.
Everyone kept to their own preferred mode of communication with enough overlap to still communicate just fine.
Works for me.
Update November 25, 2019
We do it again! Here’s another pair of relevant current photos. Well, the Mason and Sophie photo is current by any normal consideration (if you’re a nuclear physicist and it’s more than a billionth of a second ago then it might not be current, but nuclear physicists are a strange breed). The photo of Chris and me is only 18 years old so that’s pretty recent — after all, she and I still look just the same.
Mason & Chris; June 2002, Portland
Actually, Mason was in attendance at Andrea’s wedding in Portland in June 2002 where the above picture of Chris and me was taken. He was a wee bit younger then and probably doesn’t remember.
Bucolic scene? I’d prefer bucolic with cows but this is gonna have to do.
But we digress. No, actually, we get ahead of ourselves. First, I need to show you the peaceful scene (above) from last November where there’s lotsa shade from the south trunk of the tree that we’re saying goodbye to in this blog post. Clothes appear to be happily drying on a line suspended between fence and anchor point on the house.
Wednesday, February 6, 2019
Three months later, as I’m innocently starting to hang up clothes I notice the pepper tree branches are even lower than shown in the photo above –– in fact they’re interfering!
Yes, something is very wrong. (Very perceptive Paul!)
Chris and I don’t panic. The philodendron that usually threatens Chris’s head and shoulders as she leaves the garage has been underfoot the last couple days but she doesn’t think much of it. My funky system of suspending the plant between the two pepper tree trunks with baling twine, bamboo and an old seatbelt failed. (My funky systems have been known to fail before.)
How much crunching is going on up there?
That gap is new!
Thursday, February 7, 2019
I call the arborist we’d worked with 20 years ago when building the garage. He refers us to a company who actually does work on trees, not just consult, A and J Tree Company.
John (the “J” presumably) stops by about noon to assess. He returns about 4 pm because our tree keeps bothering him. John declares an emergency! He really doesn’t want this tree to shift and crunch the garage any further, so he starts right in trimming to lighten the load on the garage. A couple of other guys soon join him and by dark there is a whole lot more sky visible.
Ooooh! That really doesn’t look good!
I don’t see any damage from the inside but ya gotta wonder.
How high was that big limb before?
A view into the shadows of the November 2018 photo. That big limb was at least 2 or 3 feet higher than it is today!
Other limbs threaten!
Something very familiar about the sound in this 7 second video –– and we will be hearing that sound a lot tomorrow (Friday).
World’s longest chain saw in action on our tree!
Still shot of world’s longest
Skyline is changing over garage!
Garage has gotta be feeling some relief!
Friday, February 8
Four guys from A & J spend all day crawling all over our garage and our tree — we’re in good hands. What’s more they’re hardworking, cheerful and friendly — even into the grumpy late-afternoon hours (well, it’s that way those hours can be for me!).
They protect the garage by slicing off small-enough chunks of the limbs so they can grab the chunks with ropes or arms or both and move them away from the roof before dropping them to the ground. Homeowners like to see that sort of care.
Early Friday conference
Garage protection
The other ends of these ropes are on branches still threatening garage.
Garage has been liberated!
You can’t tell from this photo but enough weight has been removed so the trunk has actually lifted back up a few inches and no limbs are now touching.
Six chain saws!
And I haven’t seen the world’s longest since Thursday.
John’s son-in-law is the aerial man!
He’s about to cut some more carrot slices off the trunk. I keep thinking of this approach as gumming the problem to death, but it’s both very simple and very effective, two highly desirable qualities.
Just a few more carrot slices!
Branches about to become chips
Final roof clearing
Some of the sawdust got blown under shingles and I’m hoping that won’t cause problems later.
Raining sawdust
Look at all those carrot slices!
Largest diameter carrot slice I can find
Saturday, February 9
John and wife Victoria are the only ones to appear. They’re here to load the chunks of tree I don’t want and remove them from our lives. Sure is a sweet, little grabber vehicle he’s got and he makes sure, by carefully spreading out sheets of plywood, not to rip up our side yard with its tracks.
On Saturday, Chris and I enjoy meeting Victoria, John’s wife. She’s obviously been at work sites before.
Only tweaked shingles-phew!
These tweaked shingles shown in the center of this photo comprise the extent of our garage damage we can see. Phew! We feel lucky. The tree must have chosen to ooze rather than topple onto the garage.
Additional damage
Our patio area right beside the Pepper tree. The near crack across our bricks has been there for many years, not nearly this pronounced, though. The second crack, toward the center-right in the photo, is new. Even so, we’re not losing sleep over this.
This is stark!
Compare with the shot from last November. The word bucolic does not come to mind now.
Current look of garage and tree
The other half of our tree is still here, and probably more secure, now, but here’s another shot showing a pretty naked garage.
I’m glad damage from the tree is very slight and the cost will be pretty much limited to the cost to remove the south trunk of the tree, but Chris and I really liked that tree and I feel some sadness to have so much of it gone. It was a friend.
