I’m glad I was absent at the time

This mangled bit of metal you see here is a ladder stand, used for hunting deer. It was one, anyway, until last week’s winds toppled the ash tree that supported the stand.

Following a two-day gale, I walked our woods, looking for blowdown that might be converted into firewood. I found some, all right, including two thirds of a triple-trunk that had served as one of my hunting perches.

The tree had seemed solid; the rot that weakened it was inside the trunk, near the ground.