I know my blog is about nature photography and I don't have a photograph of the tree in this story. My daughter is the story teller, and she does have a blog for telling stories. But I just have to tell this story. My mother is 81 years old, she lives in Georgia alone now in the house I grew up in with my 4 brothers. She is a very strong christian woman, does community service not weekly but daily. Over the last year almost every time I talk to her she has wanted to tell me about this tree in the neighbor's yard across the street. She is concerned about it falling and hitting her house. She has spoke to the neighbor and the neighbor sees nothing wrong with the strong leaning oak tree. So my mother prays, and she says she prays about this tree daily. Well, the roots finally gave way after dark a couple of weeks ago. When it hit the ground and all the lights went off the sound was enormous. She thought somebody had hit a pole and knocked the power off. Transformers are loud when they pop. She was busy looking for the candles when a different neighbor calls to ask if she is ok, and did the tree hit her house. She says "The Tree fell?". Yep. Hit a car too. Just on the trunk, and the 2 teenagers walked away unhurt. Well, Georgia Power came and cleaned up the power mess and her driveway well enough for her to get her car out of the garage. But her house was not hit. The impact was so great that some of the limbs are inbedded in the concrete of her driveway. Not asphalt, but concrete. Couple days later Mama and another lady (Frances) about her age were out in the driveway cleaning up the little limbs they could handle. A man stops and tells her he and his wife are christians and they want to take care of all the mess for her. She tells him she will be ok, and will be able to handle it. Long story short on that is the man would not take no for an answer. The next week she is gone all day volunteering at the food pantry, stops by Frances' house on the way home. Frances ask her what she thinks of her yard. Mama doesn't know it until then, but they had been working in her yard all day. Well, I thought all along this man must cut trees for a living so he was going to give a day of service to her. But I was wrong. He runs a tatoo parlor and he paid to cleanup the tree and the 4 trees that were damaged in her yard by the falling tree. I asked a few more questions about him at that point. He and his wife are in their mid 2os, she is a hairdresser. I could not believe this story. My mother blesses so many people and this has been such a blessing to her that this stranger felt such a need to do this for her. She was crying as she told me this story. Her prayers were answered all the way around, the main thing was nobody was hurt by this tree when it fell.
The tree at the top was taken at the Spring City Park in Spring City, Tennessee earlier this month. Don't know why the photograph downloaded so small. If I had wanted it to it wouldn't have. Oh well.
Needless to say, we weren't disappointed. I have researched this and feel comfortable saying it is a Broad Winged Hawk, but correct me if I am wrong.
