Lucie's Legacy: It all started with a March Nor'-easter

You would not believe it but really it did all start with a March nor'easter

and we are still recovering from one thing or another.

As you can see, after the nor'easter there was snow.

In March the nor'easter that came our way was heavy rain and the strongest winds we've ever experienced other than when there is a hurricane. The rain saturated the ground and there were huge pools of water in our back yard. The last night of the storm was the worse. I could not sleep and kept looking out at our huge pine trees swaying back and forth in that wind. At 2:30 a.m. I finally went to bed and that's when it happened - two large pine trees came down. We have a good sized fountain at the top of our yard and it was just amazing that one tree fell to one side of the fountain while the other fell to the other side cause minimal damage to the fountain (an easy fix). I reflected on that a bit and just knew that the Blessed Mother had protected us from injury and extensive damage - why did I believe this? Because right under the fountain I buried medals of Our Lady years ago when we were about to have a hurricane. That was way before we purchased that fountain. In fact, there used to be a statue of Our Lady on that exact spot that I moved to another location but left the medals buried. One medal was of Our Lady of Medjugorje, one from Fatima and another from Notre-Dame du Cap. The trees just missed the house as well so how could I not believe Mother Mary protected us during this storm? Even one of my neighbors said "someone was watching over you and Tony".

It took a couple of weeks for a tree company to remove the fallen trees but finding the right people for the right price was an experience all in itself. The first company I called was Methuen Tree - I had hired the owner, Tom, in the past and thought he would give me a fair price. He quoted me a price of $2,000 telling me it is easier to take down trees than to clean up after they fall..what?!??!??! I couldn't believe my ears. Now this was March and he said he could not come until late spring... what?!?!?!??!? I don't think so.

I called another tree company who quoted me a price of $850 and $1600 to take down five other pine trees. Another individual heard the trees were down and came with an estimate of $650. We had pretty much decided on the company for $850 since they have a good reputation when on the following Monday morning our door bell rang. Our neighbor across the street who is a landscaper now does tree removals as well - he quoted us a price of $450. Well I know Joe very well and saw him grow up when his parents moved her from Portugal - we decided to give Joe the job and asked for a price to remove the other pine trees. He came back with a price of $1800 to remove *7* pine trees. Since the removal of those seven trees took place there are two more large trees of unknown species coming down sometime this week. Joe had also said they would trim some of the maple trees so everything would look nice.

It was unbelievable how beautiful the young maple trees were once the pine trees were out of the way.

Well as I said, it all started with the March nor'easter - after the trees were down and while doing some cleanup of my own, I noticed some of the posts that support the roof our on deck were extremely wet. I talked to my husband about them and we went out to take a better look removing some boards i n front of the deck. Well it turned out that three of the posts were rotting at the bottom. Considering that the deck was built about 34 years ago we've done well up to now. The corner post was the worse and it put the corner of the roof in danger of falling - Saturday before Easter one son-in-law came over and put a new post next to the old so the roof would be safe. On Easter (of all days) because of the danger, both our sons-in-law Corey and Tyler removed the old post and moved the new one into its proper place. The following Saturday Corey came with our daughter Sarah and he replaced the other two posts with new ones. During the week between the first post and the other two being installed, I was busy putting in new floor boards and painting the deck a new earth tone color. In all it took two weeks for the deck repairs and refurbishing but now we know it is safe and looks beautiful.

On Wednesday of this past week Joe came with his crew and took down seven pine trees - this week a small maple is coming down and the two behind our home. One is so big and leaning toward our house - if it fell in a storm it would split our house in two. So I've been busy moving azelia and rhodedendron bushes - when one of the big trees was taken down in the back it crushed a beautiful large azelia bush I had and I don't want that to happen again.

So like anything else, when we begin a home project we never know how involved it will be. My days have been totally consumed with all of this for three whole weeks and we are not done.

Now you know why I have not been able to blog lately - this weekend it is raining so today I'm trying to catch up. Yesterday I was so tired after all of that I simply vegged and watched some movies.

So we are almost done - the next thing I must do is thank several people for a wonderful award given Lucie's Legacy and the Acadian Ancestral Home blogs when I was in the middle of all this havoc.

Lucie's Legacy

Lucie LeBlanc Consentino