Big, big, big branch crashes through the Lake house

Waking up I hear a choir of Angels singing just for me.

Oh wait,
That’s not Angels. That’s, that’s Cats!!
Ok. So I’m not dead. That’s nice to know.
They’re not exactly singing hymns, either, come to think of it.
Peppered with curse words as they are.
Hangry?

I rolled over and saw Dillon the villain sprinting past my window. On the chase.
This means Mr.W has returned from the lake house. He just went yesterday.
He must have a problem down there.
I really don’t wanna know what this is. It’s never pleasant.
One “I struck oil at the lake house” would be nice. Just one.
Not in my world.
I drag my body up and check my glucose. I’m ok.
Into the kitchen. No kids up yet. No Ivy yet.

I feed cats. Let dogs out. They join Dillon in the big chase for nuthin’.
And I sit down.
Peace?

I may have dozed off. I awoke to Mr.W. going on about a broken window and a tree limb in the Lake house. I said “Wut!?”
He asks haven’t I been listening. No, no I wasn’t. I was asleep, I think.
He asks where Son-of-a-wrek is. I told him, “I reckon he’s in his bed at home”

I heard: “Get him here!”
Rude?

I sent a text.

By now kids are up wanting food. Ivy came in and read my CGM. I told the boys to wake their Mom and tell her they and Pop-pop want breakfast.
Ivy hands me a protein drink and asks what going on.
Nosy?

So, the story is the ice storm broke a tree at the lake. Big limb hit the side of the house and broke a window. It caused all manner of damage. The tree was not Mr.Ws. But, he proceeded to cut it anyway. The landowner is not amused. It’s not that the tree was valuable, but it was his. He insisted he should’ve been called. Mr.W told him he didn’t even know who he was. Never seen him there. Couldn’t call.
And explained he had to cut to move the limb from inside his camp. He thinks he placated the landowner.
Personally, I expect a criminal charges and a trial, but I’m a defeatist in these matters.
Prison?

Son-of-a-wrek gets here before food is cooked. He’s amazing that way.

They set off to board up the camp and hide from the long arm of the law. I’m sure fishing will happen.
Dillon has to go as well. He loves it, so he’s happy. House dogs are downhearted.
Over and done?

Doubt it.

I’m not a lawyer. But I think that whatever portion of the tree lands on your land becomes your tree. If the neighbor actually does kick up a legal fuss, check your state laws, which may well be on your side.

My guess is a) that the neighbor will calm down and b) that Mr. W and neighbor should trade phone numbers, if they haven’t already.

If he cut down the whole tree without permission, that’s generally not allowed. You’re typically not allowed to cut down a neighbor’s healthy tree. You can trim branches that extend over your property, but even then you have to be careful not to cause the tree to sicken or die. An exception might be if there is imminent risk of damage to your property, then you might be able to cut it down yourself. But even then, you would likely have needed to make a reasonable effort to contact the neighbor. The laws I’ve seen regarding this have said that the neighbor would be entitled to some multiple of the replacement cost of the tree. If this was a big tree, that could get expensive. I don’t know all the details here, but on the face of it, it could be serious depending on what the neighbor wants to do. It would be worth being contrite to try to smooth things over with the hopes that the neighbor doesn’t pursue it.

Son-of-a-wrek has informed me that the neighbor is there today.
There’s been a meeting of the minds, so to speak.
The tree is uprooted and wouldn’t have survived.
Mr.W and Son are gonna finish breaking it down and the landowner can use it as firewood or sell it. He was happy with that.
Of course, Mr.W will fix his lake house and all will be fine.

If it looks like there’s a mist coming across the lake GET THE HELL OUTTA THERE, NOW!

I had a massive tree sheer off the entire side wall of my house, it missed killing me by about a foot, I did have a couple good scratches. Insurance payed for the rebuild, it did take almost a year for it to be over

About 8 years ago I cut down a huge Frasier Fir that had gotten too big for where it was, threatening our house. My gf wanted to hire the “real” tree people, but I pointed out how perfectly straight it was, and how, using trigonometry, I could show that the top of the tree would miss our retaining wall by precisely ten feet.

So, I took off all the limbs I could reach. Then I cut a proper notch cut. Then I modified my notch. Then I slowly began my felling cut, eventually using wedges to convince the tree to fall exactly where I wanted it to.

My gf pointed out that I just barely missed hitting the retaining wall. I pointed out that it was exactly 10 inches away, which was what I predicted. She swore I’d said ten feet.