Good thing I got those trees cleared out.Follow

About 10 minutes ago I was sitting in my room playing EQ2 and I heard a loud splintering noise and crashing. There is no moon visible, cloudy night, so I can't see anything outside but I am panicking because tree branches have broken before and landed on my house. I didn't near a thud as something would hit the ground so I'm thinking what ever was crashing/snapping is now stopped suspended in the air somewhere.

I grab a lantern and head outside, looking around trying to see what broke. I go to the side of my house where a large cherry tree used to be. Half of it is laying on the ground about 7 feet from my house.

Just a month ago I had a tree cutting service come through and clean up this very cherry tree. The main trunk split into three trunks about 12-18 inches in diameter, and must have been each about 15 foot tall. The left one tilts away from my house one way, the right one tilts away from my house the other way, and the middle one tilted over my house. I had the service remove the middle one, since it was the most dangerous. Now the right one is laying on the ground, and it appears to have torn the top halves of two smaller trees near it as it fell. 7 foot from my house and about 4 foot from the front of my air conditioner's condenser.

Tomorrow when the sun rises I'll have to survey the scene properly and see if there is any real damage or danger of the rest of the tree falling.

No apparent woodpecker damage, and it's a very calm night.

I think the reason the tree was branched into three very large trunks like it was, was because of possible splitting damage when it was very young. Cherries tend to grow new trunks out of every cut surface from what I've seen. I left a couple cherry trunks alone years ago and 2-3 trees started growing from them.

It'd odd though, cause cherries (at least locally) are some of the stronger trees. The poplar/popal/aspen (what ever you want to call them) are the ones that are known to snap easily in the wind. They are a very soft wood, and they tend to become hollow as they age and rot from the inside out. And dangerous cause they grow like weeds and small aspens can because towering trees in about 10 years.

Sounds like Trolls. Better watch Troll Hunter and rig up a sun beam gun, and go hunting!

I got it cut up, piled up in the yard waiting for me to get a truck to haul it away. It looks like the main fork in the tree is rotted through. The interior of the split is black/brown instead of light yellow/white of the fresh wood.

I'll have to get the tree removal service back in. The last of the three forks left, if it were to fall, has a chance to hit my house. It leans just off the path to my house, but not far enough away for me to feel safe.

It came very close to taking out my neighbors service entrance. The lines run parallel to the side of my house, about 15-20 feet away from it. The tree fell parallel along the side of my house right between the house and their service lines.