Boxelder Fail

I was mowing at our Summer party place the past couple of days and noticed that some branches on a three trunk boxelder tree were blocking my path where they hadn't in the past. On further investigation, it was evident that, although the tree had split years previously, one of the recent storms had caused the split to open up more.

Yesterday, while I was photographing the tree I heard a crack and figured it wouldn't be too long before the South half of the tree was on the ground. Sure enough, sometime overnight it let go.

I was reading up a bit about the Boxelder, which is also known as ash-leaved maple, and ran across a well written piece by Steve Nix. Here's a quote:"Boxelder, also known as ash-leaved maple is one of the most common and adaptable urban trees in North America — it also may be the trashiest. Planting it next to the house is probably not a good idea... [it] is a rather nasty tree where limbs break with a vengeance — a landscape maintenance nightmare." Amen. You can read the online article here.

Here are two photos of the tree yesterday afternoon and two similar shots from this morning. Firewood anyone?