Random Thoughts After the Storms

My power was out for almost 24 hours and there are neighborhoods here in the Cities that won't have power back until Wednesday, so I'm very grateful that ours was back just in time to watch the Stanley Cup Final hockey game on Saturday night. We lost large branches from some of our trees, and pulled several other trees down yesterday but our damage wasn't as great as other people's.

This is the weather map of what hit us on Friday night. The darkest part is very
close to my suburb and the storm was moving from left to right with 60+ mph
winds and driving rains. 

All over the cities trees gave up and were uprooted, losing the battle with waterlogged soil. We got eight inches of rain added to our lakes, creeks and rivers. Storms reappeared on Saturday night and early Sunday morning, but they were more fleeting and didn't cause us as many problems. But we'll be cleaning up for days.

This scene was duplicated throughout the Twin Cities area.
Many trees just couldn't hold up through the high winds
and saturated ground. 

As I said above, we pulled down several trees. These were trees that were now endangering my house, so they had to go. My front yard looks like a lumberyard right now. We'll get all of these cut into smaller pieces and either bundled for collection or added to the wood pile before mid-week. More rain is expected on Tuesday so that may be pushed out a bit longer, but it will get there. 

The largest tree we pulled down was a big ash. We have had our eye on it for a while, but it was still OK. But not after this storm. We climbed a ladder and roped it with 100 feet of rope and DH wielded the chain saw while I pulled to keep it moving toward me instead of the roof. The problem was that all of the branches were away from me, so it was HEAVY! I wasn't getting anywhere and the chainsaw bound into the back cuts, so DH turned off the saw and came over to help me pull. We were getting there, but not easily, when a young man came over, t-shirt, shorts and work gloves. After he helped us get the tree down (help so needed!) we thanked him and found out that he is our new next door neighbor - Chris. He, his wife and their three kids moved in a month or two ago but since the house was never officially listed for sale we weren't sure if it had been sold or if they were house-sitting. Now we know, and they seem like really nice people. He certainly was a big help when we needed it!

Several cars were squashed by falling trees, but this was a great pic.

I'll be spending a few days catching up with several days of no internet/computer access, so please forgive the lack of immediate response to your posts and comments. I'll get there. Thanks for all of the kind thoughts during our latest weather issue. It's nice to hear the ambient sounds of my house and get a nice response when I flip a light switch. Such a simple thing and so nice...