If a Tree Falls and Just Misses the House, Does it Make a Sound?

Thanks to swings between mild and severe, it might be time to outlaw Nashville weather. The past two weeks started with bruising winds and pummeling rains.

Aside from four days of working from home , the 2010 flood had little impact on me. If I had stayed in West Nashville, it would have been different - my neighborhood sat adjacent to Richland Creek, which wiped out several shopping centers and dozens of homes built on its banks. The thin flood plain was overwhelmed.

Winds swirled into tornadoes on Monday afternoon; at work, the power flickered and the window panes bent against the wind. Some went to the basement; I hunkered down in my cube, hoping the glass would hold. It did.

But the first storm left its mark, tearing the roof off the nearby middle school and toppling the massive hackberry in my backyard. The tree fell parallel to the house, its limbs draped on the roof tile and root system pulling up huge chunks of asphalt.

Limbs briefly continued to bud new leaves, as if the uprooting had not registered in the branches that once stretched 50 feet above the house. Birds still hopped through the branches, nibbling at the buds and infuriating the cat just inside the screen.

Photos don't do it justice. From my bedroom and rear porch windows, I see nothing but limbs. The cat has not gone outside since, and reminds me every time I return home. I answer his meows at the back door with, "I can't get out that way either."

The emergency cases are still getting sorted out, then the tree men moved onto ours. For now, this tree awaits a chainsaw. There's one in the garage, but let's face facts, only I should fear loss of limbs using that thing, not the tree.