If a Tree Falls in a Backyard…

…and you’re making garden salsa indoors at the time, does it still make a sound?

Why, yes! Just not very much of one.

Weakened by a few days of rain and, well, having died last year after I girdled it, a 40-foot Chinese tallow in my back yard gave up its ghost this evening and fell in a very courteous manner. (Thanks to Jenna for the apt adjective.) Instead of falling on the neighbor’s yard, crushing the fence, crushing our garage, wiping out our deck, or any number of other nasty scenarios, the dead tree simply crushed one tomato plant and a LOT of wildflowers and missed everything else entirely. I was even tired of that tomato vine, too. The tree trunk is completely blocking all of my back paths, though I’m convinced a day with a good chainsaw and things will be passable again.

It is conceivable it could have crushed me, though. I was in that very spot several times earlier in the evening picking tomatoes and leaf-foots. Instead, I was inside making a very delicious garden salsa with my own porter and cherry tomatoes, and jalapeños. Salsa saves the day!

I suppose it will present a bunch of new opportunities for planting things, and change the pecking order of a few of the plants. Two very large autumn sages appear to have borne the brunt of much of the fall, and given how brittle those are under normal circumstances, I’m sure they’re mostly toast. As it was getting dark when it happened, I still don’t know the full extent of what’s beneath.

I’m actually quite excited about this. I killed the tree intentionally, as it’s an allelopathic non-native/invasive trash tree, and it shaded a significant part of my yard (but not the house). I’ve been pondering how to get rid of it for some time without having the $400 or more to have it professionally removed. After girdling it, I’d weakened most of the larger branches with cuts hoping it would come down in pieces, but none of those ever did the trick. This, however, took care of it in one nice swoop. On to the clean-up!

The salsa, by the way, is delicious.