Someone Wounded My Tree

So the other day I'm backing out my driveway and as I'm about to go down the road I realize something is not quite right so I stop short. My husband asks, "What's the matter?" I reply, "What the f&*k!" as I look down the driveway and see my beloved Japanese maple tree is wounded. I quickly pull back in and jump out of the car to get a closer look...







Sure enough, something terrible happened to my tree. One huge branch was dangling off of it and it looked as if someone pulled on the branches and tried to rip them off. (See pic 5) If that wasn't bad enough the trunk of the tree was damaged as well (see pic 3). I was devastated. Who would do such a thing?

I thought back to something odd that happened earlier in the day. There was a banging on my door, bang, bang, bang to the point I almost expected the person behind it to say, "FBI let us in!" only it wasn't the cops but this weird looking guy with really bad teeth, unkept semi-long hair, wild eyes and a push lawn mower, "I want to mow your lawn!" I was taken aback by the brute force of his "request" and quickly locked the inside door, "That's okay my son will be doing it. Thanks anyway." I closed the door and heard my dog in the yard going nuts. I didn't run out to see what was going on. Instead I doubled locked my back door.

After a couple of minutes I looked outside and saw this freaky guy walking down my driveway pushing his mower out into the street. I was surprised he was still here but really didn't give it a second thought. Now, I'm not saying this guy killed my tree because I didn't see him actually do it, but I have no idea what else could have happened.

This is what it used to look like...



That Japanese maple tree was given to me by my children on Mother's Day the first year we bought this house, so it's about 13 years old. I love that tree. It's not dead, yet, but I don't know if she's gonna make it or not. Bastard!

Now one other strange thing...when I was selling my house in Brooklyn I had the same type of Japanese maple tree in my front lawn. I had just replaced a huge rose bush that had gotten struck by lightning, twice. I only had that tree a couple of months before I put the house on the market. One morning I woke up to find that someone didn't kill the tree but actually dug it out of my yard and stole it! We followed the trail of dirt down to the avenue when the trail disappeared, most likely in somebody's car. Yes, they are expensive trees, but damn, buy your own!