TS Irene finished what TS Danny started

Almost exactly two years ago, Tropical Storm Danny took a swipe at New England. We came home from our midwest trip to find a backyard full of tree.

It took close to three weeks for the neighbors to finally remove that damn thing from the yard. We strongly suggested they remove the whole tree because the bulk of the dying tree overhung our garage. In the end, they decided not to spend the money.

Today Tropical Storm Irene barrelled through and took care of all of our problems.

Yep, that's the new view from my deck. The tree managed a perfect 10 landing. No humans or animals were injured. It missed seriously damaging the surrounding four garages and homes. It nicked a couple garages on its way to comfortably rest on about six of our 35-feet tall arbor vitae trees. GAH!

I'm grieving the loss much worse than I would have two years ago. Back then I didn't know what a gold mine this tree was. Every bird that passed through the yard landed on that tree. I'm going to miss them being almost close enough to touch. I could sit stock-still on my deck and snap photos without them ever noticing me.

And worse still, this was the tree my furry friends visited a time or two.

The upside may be that all that clear sky could be a fine place to watch the big birds float around. I'm trying really, really hard to ignore those gawdawful utility wires and satellite dishes.

And maybe our weather vane will actually be right . . .

. . . more often than it's wrong.