Two blocks from the church lies an open manhole.  This is actually fairly common, and is just one more reason why you have to drive carefully (imagine catching a wheel in one!).  The difference with this manhole, however, is that someone was kind enough to mark it with a flag so that an unsuspecting driver wouldn’t suffer devastating damage to their car. 

The flag itself (a tiny strip of blue cloth) doesn’t do so much to warn you as much as the tree that it’s attached to does.  Not a proper tree, I suppose, but a very large tree branch.  When it was first put in this pit a week or two ago, it towered over the street by a good 8-10 feet and was covered in leaves. 

But alas—life is hard for a tree in a manhole, and already the effects are evident: all the leaves are gone, and the branch only reaches about 5 feet off the ground.  Below is a picture of it.  In another week or two, I suspect it will have disappeared altogether, and we’ll just have to drive carefully again.