Pre-Hurricane Season Tree and Garden Trimming

Living in Florida for most of my life, I was surprised that the area that I lived in hadn't gotten hit by a single hurricane for numerous decades. Whenever a hurricane would come, it would always miss our area. My friends and I would talk about how they would always miss us. Unfortunately, it wasn't the case late summer of 2004. It was mid-way into August during the start of the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece.

I was hoping to see a friend of mine in action as he competed in the men's welterweight Boxing competition. I assumed that since we didn't get hit the last several decades, 2004 wouldn't have made a difference. Sadly, I assumed wrong as we got hit by a hurricane. Hurricane Charley which was classified as a category four swept by in just several hours before doing damage elsewhere.

When Charley hit, I sat in the dark waiting for the hurricane to go away. For a moment, I didn't even fathom the possibility that we had gotten hit by Charley. Before my grandmother sold the house to my mom, she grew a very lush garden in the front and the back of the house. We have many exotic plants that one wouldn't find easily in Polk County, Florida. On the right side of the house, there were plenty of fruit trees along with pineapple plants.

The window on the first story of that side was to my room. With the category four winds hitting, the branches of the fruit tree constantly smacked against the side of my window. I was very concerned and very hysterical that I the branch would shatter the windows if smacked hard enough. Luckily, it wasn't the case. The hurricane passed and everything was calm the next morning.

As Charley quickly passed, the damage had already been done. My backyard was a wreck with all sorts of broken branches. I had spent two days straight dragging branches from the back to put in a pile on the front yard for the sanitation workers to pick up. The big house by the lake that's across from my house had a very big amount of branches as well.