I had wonderful intentions of knocking out a few projects this weekend. Those plans were thwarted when a big wind storm blew through Friday evening and knocked down one of the trees in our yard. Once I saw the tree on the ground and the giant mess it created I knew that most of our Saturday would be spent cleaning up the mess.
I can't remember for sure what I was doing, except I was in my bathroom with the door open, Maggie was sitting on my bed watching me, and Jonathan was in the other room. I knew a storm was coming, but it just looked like a typical rainstorm. Since I'm perpetually hot these days I hadn't shut the window yet, hoping that the storm would help cool things down. Suddenly the wind picked up tremendously. Our window screen was getting sucked out of its place; it was completely concave and stretched way beyond what I thought was possible. I ran to the window to save the screen and shut the window. The noises outside were so loud that I didn't realize what was happening. Plus it all happened so fast that it's kind of a blur now.
I reached the window just after the tree hit the ground. Then I panicked because I wasn't sure if all of it was finished blowing over. Given its proximity to our room I was scared it was going to come through the roof. I tried to get Maggie, but for some reason I couldn't reach her and she wouldn't come to me. I started yelling for Jonathan's help...it seemed like it took him a long time to come. I finally got Maggie and ran to safety. I entered the kitchen the same time Jonathan did. Maggie was screaming because I scared her with all of my panic and yelling. I'm sure she was perfectly comfortable on my bed and didn't understand what all the yelling was about and why I grabbed her and ran to the kitchen. When Jonathan's eyes met mine I said, "That tree just blew over." And he very matter-of-factly replied, "I know."
Then we realized our garbage can had blown away and strewn dirty diapers all between our house and our neighbor's. Our grill also blew over. Jonathan went out in all the fury to pick up all of our trash before it got carried even further. I stayed inside and tried to calm Maggie down. I felt really bad. The poor thing was terrified!
The storm was relatively short-lived. Our's and our next door neighbor's were the only yards that sustained any damage. I'm betting it's because we have an open field behind our house so there was nothing to help block the wind. Some of my corn blew over and one of my tomato plants snapped in half.
The tree was some sort of poplar--and you know how tall they get. Miraculously the tree did no damage to our house. If it would have fallen just a few inches in the opposite direction it would have taken out the power line leading to our house, damaged the house, and possibly gone through the roof. And if it would have fallen a few inches further in the same direction it fell, it would have hit our neighbor's trailer. It really fell in the perfect spot! Our neighbor had large branches come down and land on his car; somehow the only damage to his car was a little scratch.
I wasn't disappointed over losing the tree. We've actually talked about cutting that tree and the one next to it down, so Mother Nature took the initiative. The one next to it is diseased and this one probably wasn't completely healthy either. We'll probably fell the other tree and the bottom third of this one in the fall after the grain behind our house is harvested and my garden is no longer producing. We should at least have less leaves to rake this fall :)
It's hard to tell in the picture, but those branches are stuck into the ground about 6" deep. We did get all the wood blocked today and we got the majority of the mess cleaned up. The chore went a lot faster than I thought it was going to. I didn't feel like I helped very much, but my leg has been giving me fits the rest of the day so I must have worked harder than I realized. Our friends came over to help (thanks) and our neighbor let us borrow his chainsaw (thanks). Since we have a wood burning stove we didn't have to figure out where to go with the wood, we just stacked it in our yard.
I guess there's always next Saturday to work on my projects, right?
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