Hammer Into Anvil

Barley, a dog, sniffs around at the base of several enormous hunks of wood cut years ago from the trunk of a huge tree.

In a post from some time ago, I described my experience of being temporarily displaced from my apartment by a (thankfully minor) flooding problem, which resulted in a Bad Time for Barley. While that story turned out fine in the end for her and for myself, I didn’t mention the sting in the tail for the awful model unit that we stayed in as an emergency measure. Not two weeks after we had moved back into my apartment, a monster ice storm swept through the area and overburdened one of the tallest trees in the neighborhood. In came down like an axe and split the building clean in half, wrecking the very model unit I had stayed in. Fortunately, it being a model unit, it was empty when the tree fell, so no one was hurt. Still it was quite a sight to behold when walking Barley the following morning.

Before long, the ice had thawed, but even then it took nearly a month for a work crew to begin the disassembly of the beast. They had to bring in a crane to support the trunk from above while taking chunks off, to avoid the risk of it settling further and damaging the foundation. Gradually, bit by bit, the tree came apart and various bits were either carted off or mulched on the spot.

Today, years later, all that remain are the biggest, most stubborn pieces. A massive knot is visible in the cross-sections, and one presumes that a chainsaw or two might have broken trying to get through them, ruling out any further deconstruction. Too big to move and too tough to split any further, these tired bones have in turns bleached and darkened with the passing seasons, cryptic markers of a giant’s passing.