Of Weather and Trees

The first winter we lived here we learned a bit about weather in the country. First and foremost, folks in the country are on the bottom of list to get power back on. Not surprising - between fixing a line and restoring power to 100's of people in a neighborhood or fixing a line and restoring power to 10 people, the 100's always win out. That first winter we lost power three times due to wind knocking down tree limbs.

The largest storm happened right before dinner. We could here limbs falling on the house and being blown across the roof. Many limbs fell on the cover over the deck, which at that time was plastic. The plastic was pierced and broken. The power went out and stayed out until sometime in the middle of the night. Dinner consisted of crackers and cheese - not bad actually. Jordan was too young to be scared (now she freaks out when the power is out and has to sleep with us). We were at least prepared enough to have lots of candles and flashlights. Personally, I think it's kind of fun as long as it doesn't mess with my morning shower and coffee!

The storms really just Mother Nature's pruning - getting rid of the weak limbs so the strong may thrive. I just wish the results were less expensive. We ended up completely roofing in the deck. Small limbs have no effect now.

Today Mother Nature decided it was time for the annual spring pruning. Nasty, stiff, swirly winds, accompanied by rain and hail, whipped through. Jeremy and I were at work, but Eric was at his house working in the yard. He heard lots of cracking and breaking and went to check out what fell. It was two of the largest branches on the biggest cottonwood by the driveway. One branch crushed the fence along Junior's pasture and the other branch took out the fence by the orchard. Thankfully Eric was able to jimmy-rig Junior's fence together so that he couldn't get out and 'ram' every passerby. This was no easy job for Eric. About two months ago Eric was working on his rental house's shed and fell through the roof. He crushed his wrist and has been one-armed, one-handed since. Even with just the use of his left arm, he got the fence wired up and pulled the branches off the driveway.

When Jeremy got home he mended the fence enough to make it until Saturday and cleared the rest of the debris to the side of the driveway. Guess we'll be burning this weekend.