It Was A Dark And Stormy.... Day

Last Friday, that is. It was dark and stormy all day. In the morning there were dark clouds in lines across the sky, the bottoms of the clouds heavy and blue-grey and the tops an odd sort of grey-yellow. The effect was of windrows of clouds piled on top of each other, like bolsters, all moving silently southward together.

Several times during the morning  the 'Welcome' sign beside the Studio door banged against the wall, something it only does when the wind gusts from the north. Of course, Kip and I jumped each time. It was peaceful inside, but obviously not outside.

During the afternoon, I looked out and was surprised to see how how dark it was, and how violently the trees above the Marsh were swaying. No sooner had I said to myself, 'wow, the wind is really whipping those trees around' than I was startled to see the top half of a dead Balsam Fir flying through the air and landing in my Crabapple Garden. By sheer luck, it missed the Crabapple trees and fell away from the truck. It could easily have landed on my truck. This was a tree I had meant to cut it down all summer, but who has time for these things.

Here's the tree. Notice the tall stump to the left in the picture. These trees are brittle, and it isn't the wind blowing at them that breaks them, it is the wind stopping, and the tree snapping back, that causes them to break.

The part lying on my flower bed is about 30' long.

Walking out to get the newspaper, I saw that the large Spruce that has stood at the corner for so long was gone, too.

It was about 40' high, I think, and about 2' through at the base. I thought it was healthy, but obviously not! Luckily it too, fell away from trouble. It more or less went into the Marsh and not over the driveway!

The next day I checked my trails and was surprised and relieved to see that not only were there no healthy trees down, the few dead ones that had crashed had not done so over my trail. This of course is in direct violation of the Law of Nature that states that if a tree falls in the woods and there is nobody to see it, it will fall across your trail.

A little clearing, with my trusty axe and saw, soon cleaned up the small tree in the flowerbed. The Powers of Rot will have to look after the others. I feel very lucky to have had so little damage from such a storm.

There I am, in lumber jack mode!