Tree Trimming Mystery

Sometimes synchronicities can involve very mundane, everyday activities, such as the following one.

One afternoon last week, I attempted to lop off about 20 feet of an avocado tree in my backyard. It had grown straight up about 35 feet with only small branches. A neighbor had suggested that trimming it would allow it to fill out.

I focused on this matter every time I walked into the backyard for the next week, stared at the tree, wondering if I should hire someone for the task or try it myself.
Being a do-it-yourself-type, I chose to rev up my chain saw. But I took my time, trying to figure out how to make the cut so the tree wouldn’t fall into the neighbor’s yard and onto their RV.

Finally, I went to work. However, I was only able to cut through about three-quarters of the trunk when the chain saw became wedged. Nasty business jerking on the chain saw while balancing high up on a ladder. After working it free, I decided to try to pull the top of the tree over. So I tied a rope around it as high as I could reach, then tugged hard toward my yard. But no luck. I couldn’t pull it down. I told my neighbor she might want to move her RV forward, just in case, but she said her husband had the key and was out. She didn’t like the looks of it and said I should get a tree-trimming company to finish the job. I assured her the tree was leaning away from her RV and I’d finish the job myself.

So the next morning, I took a look again. The tree was still standing and tiling inward toward my yard. I decided that I would try again after we got back from the gym before it fell onto my nearby mango tree.

An hour and a half later, we came home to find the tree all neatly chopped and stacked out by the road. Two doors down a tree company was busy trimming a large live oak. I assumed that my neighbor had asked them to finish the job for me.

I thought I should pay the guys something. So I walked down and thanked them for cutting it down. But to my surprise, they said they didn’t do it. “We would never do that without the owner’s permission,” one man said.

Puzzled, I talked to the neighbors, and found out that the tree had fallen on top of their RV. They weren’t too pleased, because they thought we’d just left it there for them to clean up. Which they did.

I apologized and told them that the tree should’ve fallen the other way. A few minutes later, I went out to get the mail and to my surprise all the branches were gone! Again, I turned to the tree trimmers figuring they’d picked them up for some reason. The regular vegetation pickup was two days away. But they were still at work on the tree and piling branches on the roadside. There was no sign of the distinctive avocado leaves, and no reason that they would move the trimmings from the front of my house a hundred yards away.

I talked to the neighbors again and they were as baffled as I was. The chopped up tree had simply vanished within half an hour.

Okay, so there’s probably a logical explanation, and skeptics, I’m sure, wouldn’t find anything mysterious about this matter. But, for me, the synchronicity was the manifestation of the tree trimming company working so close by, yet having no involvement in the chopping, stacking or removal of the tree.