Under the Fireworks - Mistletoe Valley 3 - Part of Chapter 1

I had a lot planned for the Mistletoe Valley series. Right now, story three fills out the story block. Hopefully, I'll get to the planned 4-6, but I have other writing obligations (Enchanted Forest 10 and 11, Emma: A Jane Austen Variation) before I can consider the next three Mistletoe Valleys.

Meanwhile, the whole Mistletoe Valley series can be found on Amazon and, right now, in Kindle Unlimited. Links in Jolee Mayes page on my website.

One

The summer storm that raged overnight wasn’t expected.  The rain chances had been low, so when the dark clouds came rolling in, bringing with them thunder, lightning, and heavy rains, people were surprised and scared.  Reports of tree damage were coming in from all around the county.

With a little over a month until Mistletoe Valley’s Fourth of July Fireworks Festival took place at Cherry Blossom Park, Krista Johnson needed to do a quick look-over of the property before set-up could begin, especially after the storms.  There were a handful of things that needed to happen at the park before July, and not a lot of time to get them accomplished. 

Normally, town events took place at Mistletoe Valley Farms, but fireworks were one of the things Kane Crenshaw wasn’t allowed to do on his property.  There was too much that could catch on fire around the farm and event spaces.  For years, the fire department prepped, set up, and lit the fireworks over the lake in the city park, but Krista still needed to get the stage, pavilions, and the areas for food trucks and picnic tables set up.  Thankfully, while viewing was limited, Mistletoe Valley Farms was still able to provide seating for those who didn’t like the loud explosions and smoke.  That helped with keeping the size of the crowds at both locations manageable.

The dead branches and smaller sticks from the nearby oak trees that lined one edge of the park were expected; they always fell out of the trees after a storm.  What Krista didn’t expect to see was one of the cherry blossom trees fallen over and on top of the stage used for the Summer Music series or Movies in the Park. 

“That was a perfectly healthy tree according to the arborist’s report,” Krista blurted out loud.  Moving a little closer, she leaned around the tree branches trying to get a better view of the stage.  With luck, it would only be a few broken boards and not… she groaned, spotting the jagged gaping hole in the flooring.  As tempting as it was to hop onto the stage to get a better look, she acknowledged that she didn’t have a clue what damage had been done to the structural supports underneath. 

Pulling out her phone, she quickly called one of the other town council members, Natalie Davenport. 

“What’s wrong?” was the first thing Natalie greeted Krista with.

“I just started to check out the park, and there’s a tree in the stage.”

“Is it functional?”

“Two-thirds of the stage is okay, but that last third might cause us to lose our event insurance if we don’t get it fixed before the Fourth.”

“How did this happen?”

“One of the cherry blossom trees wasn’t as healthy as the arborist stated.  It looks like it initially broke at the third branch split in the truck and not closer to the ground.”

“You can see inside the tree?”

“Yup,” Krista confirmed.  “Somebody will need to call Zack and get him to explain why he declared a rotting tree as healthy.”

“If it’s one branch,” Natalie started to point out before trailing off.  “It’s not just one branch?”

“It’s the whole tree.  I’m not certain how it happened, but it’s the whole tree.”

“Anything else?”

“I haven’t checked on the pavilions where the vendors set up, yet,” Krista informed the town's councilwoman.  “But we’ll need John out to fix the stage regardless.  Our band rotations before the fireworks are a huge crowd draw.”

“Send me photos of everything you can.”  Natalie sighed.  “I don’t know if Dale or Daniel is going to be easy to convince to release the funding for repairs.”

“Whoever protests, tell him to go after Zack the so-called arborist,” Krista suggested.  “This wouldn’t be a problem if he had correctly diagnosed this particular tree as having a rotten spot in the middle of it.”

“And it wasn’t struck by lightning?” Natalie asked, mostly to remove all possible scenarios.

“Nope,” Krista replied, popping the last syllable.  “I’ll send you photos after I take them.”

She spent the next five minutes snapping photos from all possible angles of the tree, where it had split, and how it had landed on the stage.  She even zoomed in with her camera and was able to capture a few issues she hadn’t been able to spot from five feet away. 

Thankfully, the stage was the worst of the damage to the park.  A few branches had broken through the roof on one of the pavilions, but that was only a few boards.  Cleanup was also going to be an annoyance, but the town had park maintenance crews for that job.

She did make a mental note to suggest that some of the park clean-up could be used as volunteer hours for any high school students needing hours.  Even if there were plenty of volunteers, Krista had a sinking feeling that June was going to be a very long month. 

Once the last photo was sent, Natalie called her.  “I’ll get everybody gathered.  You go ahead and get over City Hally.  I was getting ready to meet Kimberly for an early lunch, so we’ll divide and call everybody.  Just get over here and prepare whatever you need to say to the Baxter Twins to get them to agree to release some funds for repairs.”

“I can do that,” Krista stated.  Hanging up the phone, she closed her eyes and admitted to the trees, “I’m not looking forward to this.”