Falling of the Fig

In our "yard" - a strip of ground about a foot wide that runs along side the driveway - we have a fig, a persimmon, a Japanese plum, a mulberry tree and a few ??? bushes. The fig tree has produced abundantly every year we have lived here. Over abundantly! And it had grown so high - taller than a two story house - that it was impossible to reach the figs in over half of the tree. We, along with Pastor, had already determined that when the figs were finished this year it was getting a major and long overdue trim job!
Figs are a wonderful fruit God gave us! So very versatile! We made up new ways every year to try them because there were more than we could use or give away! The birds rather enjoyed the fact that there were so many in the top of the tree that they could feast on since we couldn't get to them to pick.
Figs also make a disgusting mess when they get over ripe and begin to "bleed" their juice on everything in the vicinity!! Then they drop from the tree and splat all over and if you don't get them up right away they stick like glue to wherever they landed as they dry. At this stage the birds have lost interest but the bugs are loving it! YUCK - O!!!!
And to top it off the beetles had decided to infest parts of the tree and were eating it up and weakening the limbs.

So the end of our figs came early this year!
The day of the Halloween party John was so looking forward to getting home and taking a long, well deserved nap!! He was telling me all the way that he would be snoozing by 3. We had to drop by the church on our way home and that's when Pastor told him that our next door neighbors had called to complain about the fig tree. The dripping and falling fruit along with the bugs were bad enough, but now the limbs, weakened by the gnawing beetles, were cracking and falling on their roof. OOOPS!

So instead of a nap we went home and got after the fig tree!
4 plus hours later.... this is what remains.
Still has a couple of branches shooting up and next year there will be many more. And I can reach them even with out a ladder!
We think the neighbors are glad to lose the mess from the tree but a little sad to lose the bit of privacy it supplied between our house and theirs.... the bad with the good!

Hard to believe that huge tree fit into this little pile of branches and limbs and a few bags!!