THIS STORY IS PURE HILLBILLY.
The tree is not on my property, it is on the neighbor's, but it hung over our power lines, and it would have destroyed my brother's house if it split. A huge limb already broke off, but fortunately it landed in the road and on the neighbor's fence.
This is what it looked like before the limb came down. I think I took this picture right after hurricane Irma. Maybe I will go out there and take another picture, but it is like 100% humidity right now and I don't want to.
The backstory ---> My mom, my brother, and myself all live on this property (in separate houses, it's a couple acres). My brother has a land clearing business, and the slumlord hired him to cut down some trees. The slumlord isn't really our neighbor, he lives in Tampa and he buys properties out in the middle of nowhere so he can rent them out. ANYWAY, he ripped my brother off, he agreed to pay about $3,000 to have some trees cut down, and all the debris hauled off. They were dangerous massive trees that were over the house, and lightning had already struck and killed one of them. Having trees removed is very expensive, especially when it is tricky. So, he only paid half of what he owed, and then tried to say "We're good Christians" as if Jesus would rip people off.
This story is getting long!
A few days ago, he wanted to talk to my brother about doing some work for him, because now he wants all the land cleared and plans to put a bunch of houses on it. My brother quoted him a price that was reasonable (but included what he still owed) and told him he'd have to pay for all the work up front. Of course he doesn't want to pay that, so that was it. In the meantime, we had the tree crew deal with the part of the tree that was menacing us, and also some other trees in the yard.
I am losing track. lol
This morning, my brother was out there on his skid steer (it's a kind of tractor) clearing up all the tree debris from our yards. He put the limbs from the tree of doom on top of the limb that broke out of it a couple months ago. While he was working on clearing his own back yard, the slumlord showed up. Then a guy the slumlord was trying to hire showed up. Then they came over to tell my brother he couldn't put the tree of doom debris where he put it. I was in the garden so I missed the beginning of the shouting, but the next thing I know my 76yr old mother is marching over there, so I hurried up. She's like a chihuahua! I got my sister to come with me, because my mom does not listen. (I forgot to mention my sister moved in with me a year ago) By the time me and my sister got to my brother's front yard, my mom, and the slumlord's wife were shouting, my brother was shouting, the guy the slumlord was trying to hire was standing back with his cellphone out. Then I started trying to get my mom to come away from all that. Finally the slumlord and his wife retreated to their own yard, but there was my mom, refusing to budge. In the meantime, I yelled to the guy they were trying to hire that he should get their deal in writing, or get paid up front. Little did we know, that guy had already figured out the slumlord was a con artist! They wanted to pay him $800 to clear 5 acres of land. IN CONCLUSION, the new guy told the slumlord to fuck off, backed his truck and trailer out, pulled over to our yard, made friends with my brother, and might want to date my sister.