A couple of weeks ago, there was a freak windstorm in Montreal. Winds reached speeds as high as 110km/h in short bursts in some parts of the city (mostly in NDG, but also in St-Henri and a few other parts). These high winds managed to bring down dozens of trees; one large park in NDG was practically ripped apart by the winds. You can see some pictures in this Montreal Gazette story, and in this CBC News story.

Luckily, no-one was hurt anywhere as far as I’m aware. Unluckily, the trees behind my building were some of the ones that took a beating. A mature silver maple broke in half: it’s top half cracked off and ended up precariously balanced against our back staircase. Another tree, which was already leaning a bit beforehand, toppled over completely, but for one thin trunk that stayed put. Other branches from other nearby trees also were broken and fell into the back yard. It created quite a mess.

When the landlord came and took a look, he decided that it was too dangerous to leave the maple trunk just balanced against the staircase, so with the help of a nieghbour, we pushed it down to the ground.

The next day, the tree pruners came to clean up the mess. All that greenery, gone.

Now, we no longer see a wall of green when out on our back balcony; instead, I can see all the neighbours. It’s also much sunnier (and hotter) on the balcony. It’s sad, but such is life. Maybe next summer we’ll plant a tree in the corner to replace the fallen one.