A Short Night
Our plan was to sleep in this morning. We had a great family day yesterday. Great visiting and the best part was we had safe travels.
I did get up at midnight last night as my cell phone went off warning of a severe storm heading our way. By one in the morning, I was going from window to window checking the nighttime. The wind was swirling the rain so hard, I had no chance of being able to look out any of the windows regardless of the direction. I checked on Dennis and he was sound asleep. I didn’t wake him, no point in us tripping over each other checking out what we couldn’t even see.
This morning, the damage was assessed. The first think I did was check the roof of the house. Unbelievable that the roof had stayed on. We have a house width awning on the west side of the house and it had held firm. I am a strong believer that our over-sized shrub and the ancient evergreen takes the brunt of winds from the northwest.
When I had first gotten up, I did look out the east window. I could see from the bathroom window that there was a huge limb that had been torn off of the Maple. Did it take out the potting shed or brake the patio slider windows? I let Dennis take the lead. By the grace of God, there was a tremendous amount of tree damage, but none to our structures. A fellow came and with his chainsaw and sliced through various sizes. His deal is he cuts and trims but does not clean up. That’s fine with us.
It is now going on suppertime. The day has been spent picking up branches and piling them up. We have a windrow of the large chunks. Maybe someone will come by and take them for their own use. Who knows! The entire back yard was full of twigs and branches the size of my thumb or larger. Sure can’t mow over them. I still bend pretty darn good at the waist. I cleared out the immediate backyard first by making piles next to Stauffer Avenue. I then ventured east to the rest of the acre. Once I had cleared an area at a time, Dennis got the rider mower out and took care of all the leaf tips. It looked as if someone had had a belly full of them in an airplane and continued to sift them out and let them float to the ground.
As I said. The day is soon to be put to bed and I am sure Dennis and I will sleep well tonight. We have a trailer coming tomorrow to load up all the debris and take it to the tree dump. That’s for another day and perhaps another story.