WHAWAZZAT?!?

Around 3:30 a.m.:

*HUGE HORRIBLE SNAPCRACKLEPOP NOISE FROM OUTSIDE*

It woke all three of us (CM, Roxy and me) out of a sound sleep.

"WHAWAZZAT?!?" I hollered (my typical suave and articulate self even at that hour).

"It sounded like a tree falling," said CM. We have several large trees growing beside our house, and he assumed the combination of recent copious rain and unhealthy tree had made one of them fall over in the middle of the night.

We hadn't actually heard the moment of impact, and I was panicking -- what if it's just leaning against another tree? what if it keeps falling and hits the house?! -- so Captain Midnight stoically donned some clothes and went out to take a look at the damage. It was too dark to tell if a tree had fallen in the vacant lot to one side of us, but there wasn't any obvious damage -- no half-fallen tree looming over the house or threatening the lawn or anything -- so he came back to bed.

This morning, on his way to work, Captain Midnight took a photo of this just across the street.

WILLOW TREE OF DEATH!

Apparently the huge horrible noise was the sound of our neighborhood willow, weighed down by too much water and too little support on one side of the trunk, finally giving in to gravity. So we didn't just imagine it. And we're glad nobody's person or property were hurt (well, aside from the tree itself). But it is a bit sad to see this willow die; it's been there since we first moved in.