It was a Sunday afternoon swim. And then there was a Sunday afternoon outside, reading in the shade. Then, the clouds darkened to the southwest. We went inside.
Took a shower, sat in my studio office space, where I am typing this right now.
Then the rains came. We’ve been soggy for a week. No big deal. Then there was one great big gust of wind. For that one moment, it felt like the siding and the windows were fighting to stay where they were, or deciding if they’d rather be somewhere else. And then it stopped, as wind does. And you immediately forget about it, as you do.
A few minutes later, my lovely bride says to me, from somewhere downstairs, “We’re going to have a problem when this is over.” So I went to see what that was about.
What that was about was a pine tree. We have three of them tucked up right next to the southeastern corner of the house for some reason. Just sitting there and growing, here on the inner coastal plain — where the heavy land and the green sands meet. We’d talked with someone about removing the three of them one day, for safety purposes.
Now we only have to remove two of them.
Meanwhile, on the northern corner of the house, a chunk of the Bradford pear tree was sheered off. The previous owners let this thing mature and grow too large and it is a weak tree and guess what we have to deal with now?
One of the black cherry trees in the backyard also has three or four big limbs high up in the canopy snapped off. Some of the trees on the other side of the yard lost some smaller limbs.
The first order of business, after the storm stopped, was checking on our neighbors. Everyone was OK. Joe the Younger, who lives next to us with his young family, had one sickly, stubby ancient tree take a big hit. The lady diagonal from us has some limbs in her back yard. Joe the Older and his wife, directly across from us, lost some stuff in the woods behind their house. Behind us, our neighbor just installed a new greenhouse, one with an automated window that opens and closes based on the temperature. He said it was askew.
So we got the worst of it. And we were lucky.
Joe The Older came outside and said he was going to go check on the farm and his horses, and then he’d be right over with the chainsaw. The farm isn’t far away, and he was back soon. He only has some leaves on the ground over there, he said. And then he cranked up his chainsaw like it was Christmas morning and we cut that pine tree out, and then cleared the garage door. Then we chopped a lot of that wood for the fire pit and started moving the branches around. I did about four more hours of that today.
The power was out for about six hours. I took my second shower of the night, letting the rain wash dirt and bits of wood and bark and sawdust off of me.
My heart hurts about the black cherry tree; the wallet will hurt about the debris removal. Everyone is OK.
