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Yeeeowch!
Due to the frequent rains my 70' 14' diameter Black Walnut Tree has produced the largest crop of nuts I've ever seen, so many that I was very worried when they ripen to peach size and fall. I needn't worry, last night around midnight a large amount of them fell all at once. Unfortunately, all at once.
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Oh gosh! Looks like that branch dented your roof, yes?
We had a tornado rip through our neighborhood several years ago, uprooting trees and we had two great big oak trees partially uprooted and dangling precariously over our house ... but they had not yet fallen. I contacted my Insurance Company (State Farm) and was instructed that if the trees actually fell on the house they would cover the damage to repair the house. But since the trees had not yet fallen, they would not pay to have them removed beforehand. Now mind you - these tress were literally toppled over and the only thing keeping them from falling on my roof was they were caught up in the branches on trees surrounding them. Another good wind and they would have fallen. We also had other trees down in the yard - but they didn't make contact with the house. The insurance informed us that they would not would not remove the fallen trees in the yards either. That was our responsibility. And adding insult to injury. Because I was aware of the impending danger of the two trees currently dangling over my house, letting them simply wait and drop was not an option. Once I became aware the trees presented a hazard to the house it was my responsibility to have them removed at my own cost before they fell. Simply saying ... "Well Hell, I'll just let the damn trees fall on the house and then my insurance would cover it!" ... that wouldn't work because I knew a problem, made the insurance company aware, and so I was responsible to make sure that didn't happen. By the time everything was said and done it cost about $4,000 to have two or three removed - saving the insurance company for covering property damage to my yard from a tornado.
@PappyJoe That's my feeling exactly. All this talk about repealing and replacing Obama Care is bogus. Neither the Dems or Republicans care one whit about the health of the American people. They're all in bed with the Insurance industry and Pharma, and depend on them for campaign contributions. Until they understand what American's need is not a Health Insurance policy from a multi-billion dollar insurance industry that's beholding to stockholders and execs with extravagant salaries - but 'affordable health care'.
I recently saw a break-down of the yearly income for the CEO's of the major health care insurance company's and they range from $10 to $20 million a year ... up to $40 million for my particular policy Aetna. Now factor in all the individual employees at each company - and let's be kind and suggest they make about $60K a year ... which is probably kind of low. And now take that total figure and consider this ... not one penny of that money goes into paying for anyone's hospital bill. We don't need a moneymaking middleman to take our money and decide what medical procedure we need and what we don't need... what we need is to have our money applied directly to our actual medical bills.
I hate to sound like a Commie, but the answer is scrap the Insurance Companies - we don't need them - then put their heads together and agree to some single payer socialized medicine plan that benefits Americans, where our tax money actually pays our medical bills and not the bloated salary of insurance company Execs. Either that ... or drop the issue altogether, and let everyone who can afford insurance buy it like they did before the Government decided to tackle Nation Health Care.
The Government doesn't pay for my car insurance - I get the coverage I can afford ... so why would I expect them to pay for my health insurance? It would be nice is they cared enough to solve the problem. But I guess 'health insurance' is not a Right we're all entitled to. It just seems like other Nations care enough about the citizens to provide some semblance of national health care. So you might expect the greatest nation in the world to do the same.
And once we're taken the insurance companies out of the equation focus on the ridiculous prices hospitals are charging for medical procedures. The days of paying $10.00 or $20.00 for a Tylenol during a hospital stay should be over. When I asked an X-Ray tech why the price of my MRI was so outrageous he suggested it was because the equipment was expensive. To that I responded ... "That piece of equipment has been paid for many times over. Probably in the first six months in went into use. So there is no plausible reason to continue to use that excuse when the equipment was paid for years ago." This whole health care debate is a scam. As long as insurance companies remain part of the deal Americans will never have affordable health care. Just more rich Insurance Executives and career politicians who never leave office until they die at their desk.
You can probably get some nice tampers made from that Black Walnut limb. When I lived in New Jersey a neighbor had an old black walnut fall in his yard. He made some nice money by turning it into coffee table tops and walking sticks.