The bad news

...But first, the good news. Our backyard project was completed yesterday! I'll post photos of it in the next few days once we clear all the debris and random branches off the new patio.

Now on to yesterday's bad news.

Remember that tree in front of our house I wrote about last spring? The one with the gorgeous flowers and big, bushy summertime leaves?

Well, now it looks like this:

Yesterday afternoon we had one of those crazy summer storms that brought with it far too much wind and lightning. It caused a ridiculous amount of damage - seriously, look at those pictures! - along with a 12-hour power outage for us and most of our friends. The police officer who came by our house after I reported our tree (it was blocking the street) said this was much worse than anything that happened during last winter's storm.

Of course, it could have been so much worse. The tree didn't hit our house, anyone's cars (it came inches from our neighbor's convertible), or any of us.

Plus, it's on city property so it's their responsibility both to clean it up - which they did with chainsaws at 2 a.m. this morning - and tear the rest down. Still, I am going to mourn the loss of our little tree which gave us about as much shade as one could expect with a front yard the size of a postage stamp.

As I told Chad, now we have an amazing backyard and the front looks like a disaster area. Doesn't that just figure?