Adventures in Downsizing

[cranefly]

Yesterday afternoon I wheeled our yard-trim barrel out onto the street for pickup in the morning.  This might seem a strange thing to do, since it was empty; but I wanted to prevent anyone from parking out front because we'd elected for a special trash pickup day.  That allows us to amass a 4' x 4' x 8' heap of junk on the street, as well as put out three oversized objects for pickup.  So we needed the street space.

While wheeling it out there, I heard fireworks, or so I thought, just a lot of crackling, but it got very loud and ended in a  loud crash.  I saw foliage whipping about at house level catercorner from us across the intersection -- essentially the tail end of what was a tree falling.  Just beyond where it hit, I saw roofers staring at a close call.  The tree had been in the corner yard of the intersection, and it hit the house next door, just short of them atop the next house.

It's been breezy the last few days, and that might have been all it took, because the tree was not healthy.  But our neighbor thinks that the earthquake we had might have triggered it.  I doubt that, and I'm not sure of the timeline of the quake and the tree fall.  But it fell, and shortly the street was closed off with a firetruck and tree-service trucks swarming the intersection.

Actually, only half of the tree fell, as it has two trunks. and there was some inspection of the trunk that remained.  Anyway, there were chainsaws the rest of the day, working on what had fallen, and much shouting back and forth by the crew.

At 11:30 pm, in bed, LCF and I wondered just how much longer the shouting and chainsaws were going to continue.  They had to be calling it a day.

They were still going at it at one, and two, and three.  At about four, maybe a bit after, things got silent.  They had finally called it a day.

This morning I took a look outside and saw that they had piece-mealed down the remaining trunk.  Apparently it looked in too bad of shape to leave until today, so that's what they'd spent the night doing.

Anyway, there's been lots of followup cutting and shredding throughout today, with lots of big trucks crowding the intersection -- and probably none too happy that LCF and I clogged a whole strip of street with our junk.

[Drunk Monk]

How big was this tree? Sounds scary.

[cranefly]

The stump looks to be close to four foot in diameter.  I think it was a sycamore; most of the big ones around here are.
There's a monstrous orange bin on the street,, big as a semi trailer.  I can see that it's heaping full of cuttings.

Just now a second monstrous orange bin was trucked in.  This may be another noisy day.

[cranefly]

A couple photos in the aftermath, taken from our front stoop.
You can see the stump.  The tan house beyond is what got hit.  There's new construction just beyond, where the roofers got a terrifying bird's-eye view.

[cranefly]

I've been wanting to downsize for years, and in the last couple of years I've felt a growing urgency.  But each time I set out to do so, opening some box to sort through it, I was overwhelmed by all the keepsakes.  And there's so many boxes, and miscellaneous stuff stashed everywhere in closets, filling the garage and shed...  I just backed off, not able to deal with it.

But recently I had some help from Stephen Hawking and mice (or rats; not sure).  The mice part is easier to understand.  The beginning of July I decided to appraise the state of the garage.  I knew there'd been some mice (or rats) in there, because we'd glimpsed them, though not in recent months.  They had gnawed a hole at the top of the "firewall" (the drywall on the wall common to the garage and house).  But like I said, we hadn't seen them for months and assumed they'd vacated the premises.

Well, climbing up a stepladder, I was appalled at the state of the shelves and tops of everything.  Droppings everywhere, and urine stains -- and the stench.  Yes, I'd smelled it down below, but I was in denial of just how bad things were -- and LCF doesn't have as good a nose and just doesn't notice it.  I knew I needed to do a thorough cleaning of the garage, and that meant moving everything out and going over everything.

I'd meant to start this thread the beginning of July, to document my adventures; but this ordeal proved too disgusting, and shameful (how could I have let this get so bad?), and embarrassing (my hackneyed fixes along the way), not to mention exhaustion at the end of each day, that I kept putting the journalistic side of things off -- until I saw that tree fall and thought I really should post about that.

Anyway, there's still stuff piled outside, waiting to be dumped or reincorporated, but it's feeling manageable at last; so belatedly I'll catch you up on some of what transpired.  TBC.

[Drunk Monk]

Good for you.

Offal doth naught spark joy.