Enough! Enough!

On my way out the door to work this morning, there was a gigantic swooooosh! noise which startled Bob and me and Robin. We glanced out the back door but saw nothing and figured it was probably the town crew as they're delivering dump trucks full of gravel to the excavation at the end of our road. I didn't think any more about it.
But about an hour later, Bob called me at work to explain that he had figured out the noise. As if we hadn't had enough tree damage, the second half of a giant oak that had been damaged in the tornado (remember that episode) let loose. That was the giant swoooshing sound.

The final punchline to this new and updated disaster is that the tree catapulted earthward crushing another section of our fence and landing smack in the middle of my Shade Garden. This is the very Shade Garden that I strolled by yesterday- while swatting gnats and mosquitoes away- admiring just how nice it was and thinking how lucky that at least one part of our property had been spared in the tornado! Hahahaha! The joke is on me!
So Bob sprang into action and sawed up most of the large pieces before I got home so that we could correctly assess the extent of the devastation.  Here's Robin looking for bodies: (You will notice the bent and mutilated fence behind Robin. Bob straightened it so Robin can't escape but it's nicely twisted!)

Fortunately, while there is crushed foliage and general chaos, none of the rhododendrons or oak leaf hydrangea were totaled: just wrecked enough that they'll look awful for the rest of the season. And there are plenty more twigs/sticks/branches/leaves to pick up! Oh joy! Just what I wanted to do! More clean up! (And don't even ask about the leafy juicy things like hostas...)

I'm not kidding: I didn't need more restoration work! This part of the garden had been my solace after the other parts spent the early summer being cleaned and returned to "normal". I guess I have to be grateful that Bob or Robin or I weren't standing underneath when that half a tree let go. But can we please have an end to tree destruction?!?!!?