Why Trees and Electric Lines Don’t Make Good Friends

There was just a bit of excitement in my garden today. The worst part was, I wasn’t even here for it.

It started with one hell of a storm this morning. The rain came down so hard that the middle of my backyard was quickly filled with a good 5 inches of water. Half my potted plants were blown over. But I did not have much time to pay attention to that. I had errands to run. And the babysitter would be over in just a little bit.

Next thing I know, the house is dark. Electric’s out. Not a big deal. It’ll be on in just a few minutes. It always comes back on in a few minutes. That’s why you live in the suburbs. Besides, the storm was over.

Five minutes later… No electric.

Thirty minutes later… No electric.

One hour later… No electric. And the babysitter came.

I told her she might want to head out to the back yard with the kids as the house was getting a bit stuffy in the heat.

I rushed off after that. Lots of errands to run.

Then the babysitter called. Apparently she had located the reason for the electrical outage. She was pretty sure it had something to do with the live wire laying in my back yard.

But not to worry, the fire department, police and First Energy were tromping around trying to fix the problem. All I could think was my vegetable garden was back there. shitshitshit

In our neighborhood, the electric wires run along the back of the properties, in order to preserve the appearance of the street. This also means that the lines intertwine with a great many mature trees. Yeah, yeah… they are suppose to be trimmed back, but we are talking about the electrical company that was responsible for the Great Blackout of ’03. It was a tree branch that caused that too.

The violent storm caused the branches to whip about and snap the lines.

But I have good news. The wires went down on the left side of the yard. The vegetable garden is on the right and the lights are back on.

My little garden in the suburbs goes on.