Up a tree

The photo shows one of the branches I lost off my Bradford pear the other night (the one you can a good bit of in my previous post). Now, if you're familiar with Bradford pears, you know they tend to be brittle and break in windstorms, and you probably think that's how this branch came off. Nothing could be further from the truth.

There I am, relaxing in a hot bath with a good book, when I suddenly hear someone pounding on the front door. Now, I should point out that this had to have been pretty heavy-duty knocking, because I have a hard time hearing anything in the bathroom, which is at the back of the house. In fact, I can't even hear the phone ring there. I can't imagine who would be knocking on my door at 8 PM; I'm certainly not expecting anyone. Nevertheless, I cut short my reading, finish my ablutions, get dressed, and go to the door.

There's a fire truck sitting in the street in front of my house, red strobe lights flashing.


Three firemen are under the tree, apparently addressing someone up in the tree. They've got a stepladder they're trying to position. A man, standing out in the street, catches sight of me and starts demanding to know why I didn't answer my door, which he claims to have been pounding for "twenty minutes". I inquire of the firemen as to what the hell is going on.

Seems that a young woman who lives three doors down from me has climbed up my Bradford pear tree in an attempt to rescue an errant pet. No, not a cat. That would just be too much of a cliche. No, she is after an exotic bird (looked somewhat like the picture at left, which is a "blue and gold macaw") that flew the coop and perched in my tree. (It must have been the first one it could find. The house next to me has no tree in its front yard, and the second house down just felled the remainder of their Bradford pear after it came apart in the recent windstorm and went through the rear window of their car parked in the driveway.) The firemen are trying to convince her to come down before she gets hurt (one branch has cracked already), and point out to her that she is, in fact, trespassing. She's ignoring them, because the damned bird cost her $2000 (yes, that's two thousand) and she has to rescue it. The guy in the street continues to berate me for being rude enough not to answer my door, despite the fact that I told him I just didn't hear anything until five minutes ago.

Well, she manages to grab the bird and starts to maneuver her way down towards the stepladder the firemen have waiting, when CRACK goes another limb. Fortunately the firemen manage to get her down safely, bird clutched to her bosom. She apologizes all over the place but allows as how the bird is OK, so everything is all right, totally ignoring the fact that she has broken two major branches off my tree. The guy in the street, who I assume is her husband, points out that she "got hurt" (she had a scratch on her leg) -- so he hoped I had insurance! I replied that I hoped they had insurance to cover the damage to the tree.

Meanwhile (probably due to this exchange about injuries, damage, and insurance), the fire captain has asked a city cop to respond to the scene. Before he gets there, the women and the guy (who it turns out is actually her boyfriend) go back to their house, presumably to cage the damned bird. The cop arrives and I give him a brief rundown of the incident; the firemen leave. The cop goes down the street to talk to these people, and eventually comes back with the woman (sans bird and boyfriend). She apologizes some more and says I don't need to worry about any liability -- she just got a scratch and the boyfriend doesn't have anything to do with it.

For some reason, no one except me seems to be concerned about the property damage. I've got one branch lying in the yard and another broken at a right angle but still partially attached to the tree, and I'm probably going to have to pay a tree service to take it off before it rips off in a storm and causes even more damage. I've got a $1000 deductible on my homeowner's insurance so no help there. And all she can say is that the important thing is, she got her bird back!