I just can't get ahead of projects around the house. As I complete the hall bathroom remodel (or rebuilding...), I was feeling good about the upgrades, and have started turning my thoughts to fixing the master bath and bedroom. I had stored Annie's crib/day-bed in the master bedroom, and decided to get off my butt and move it to the barn for storage. I hadn't been to the barn in quite a while, and wish I hadn't for a bit longer. I'd always been able to confidently say that the barn was in good shape. Until today. There are some very large fir trees around the barn, and only a few redwoods. While the biggest fir, with a trunk diameter of around six feet seems to be fairly healthy, firs around here have a bad habit of getting large, and then slowly dying over the course of a century or so. One of the trees is showing this sort of slow death. It's base is probably between three and four feet in diameter, so you can guess how big around some of the branches are. Well, with all the rain and wind we had this past winter, some branches fell and whacked the barn. "Branches" is probably not the right word to give the visual picture. They are or were the size of small trees, about a foot in diameter.

While I didn't see any actual holes in the roof (I didn't look very hard... ignorance is bliss), chunks are missing from some of the roof along the edges. The tree is too large for me to try to bring down, and is leaning towards the barn. I'm good, but I'm afraid I'm not good enough for that. If it fell on the barn with me holding a chainsaw, insurance would just laugh at me. They'd probably offer the names of some care facilities that serve the chronically stupid. So, I'm going to have to add to my list to find someone who can come out and clean out the dead wood, and maybe drop that dying tree. Well, it isn't going to happen soon... Not to mention the roof repairs. Thank goodness there weren't any horses in there. They would have freaked.
Freakin' giant trees...