Twas a Dark and Stormy Few Minutes

Sad to see this tree in Gary Finney's woods go down.  I've seen many an eagle perched on its limbs. 

A new temporary look for the shop. 

Seeing this tree go is not gonna bother me.  It's this cottonwood complex that wreaked havoc on my mower-bag frame when I was mowing around the clump a few days ago.    

The way I see it:  an eye for an eye aka a cottonwood for a mower bag frame!

A little less shade for Bert Wood's cows at the Meserve pond. 

On the road, assessing damage, Forest Siding Road, that is!

At first, we were thinking that we must’ve been in a vacuum when the wild and furious and fast storm hit.

 

In just seconds (just like that hail storm earlier this summer), while the sky rumbled with thunder and lit up with lightning strikes every which way but loose, a fierce, violent wind swooped in, destroyed stuff and moved on.

Twas the "hit and run" storm of Summer 2014. 

I was talking to Annie on the phone and watching the sky to the west.  When the thunder started booming, I broke in and said, “I think I’d better go out and put the horses in.”

That timing was spot on.

By the time I reached the house from hurrying Lily through the metal gate and called all dogs inside, the crazy storm had arrived with ample fury.  

Within minutes the power went out. Things started making noises outside, like hitting noises.  I thought sure the Scotch pine in the yard must’ve been hit by something.

And, something made a loud plink on the southwest side of the house.  Turns out  on later inspection, in both cases, poplar limbs had landed hard in weird spots---one got lodged in the framing of the satellite dish.

I simply sat back on the couch, watching and listening and comforting Foster who was shivering nonstop with fear.

A while later Bill drove in and told me his trip home was pretty wild as he watched trees sway and felt his pickup almost swaying from side to side while parked at a stop light.

Soon, all was quiet.  I did a head count and saw that both horses were alive and well in the barnyard.

 

I did not want to count the limbs on the ground---several dozen and some pretty good size.

Eventually we both went outside and discovered that part of the roof from the storage shed had blown off, a cottonwood behind the barn had blown over and the top from a tree in the woods had snapped off.

Damage but not nearly as much as that hail storm left in its wake.

I called my sisters to see how things had gone at their house just 3.5 miles away.

 

“We have a few leaves but that’s about it . . . I guess we’re pretty sheltered,” Laurie said.

She was surprised to hear about our damage, and when we drove around the neighborhood, the destruction seemed to be pretty hit and miss, with emphasis on the “miss.”

We learned later that our damage was pretty inconsequential compared to that in Sagle, in Trestle Creek at Sunnyside and in a general patchwork pattern around the area.

My assistant blog editor Cherry put up photos of their truck almost hidden by a downed tree, and there was much more at their home.

  

My friend George Agar at Kootenai had company last night---35 retired U.S. Forest Service engineers and families.

 

A tree decided to blow down and block their driveway.  George was a bit worried that he may have 35 overnight guests, but, leave it to engineers, they found a way around the tree:  a neighbor’s driveway.

The Leens at Sagle had a tree blow down that they were planning to cut down but their planning differed considerably from Mother Nature.  They were glad that their new pigpen and its contents avoided the destruction.

A few seconds that can change your life, someone wrote under some photos posted on Facebook. Yup, it was wild and woolly, and places like Jeb and Margaret’s RV park at Trestle Creek are thankful this morning that nobody was injured in all the havoc out there with huge trees uprooting and tumbling to the ground.

 

Someone said the Army Corps of Engineers recreation area at Trestle Creek will never be the same.

So, I’m guessing that strip of metal hanging from our shop is pretty small potatoes compared to the expenses and clean-up a lot of other folks have to face this morning.

All is calm and fairly bright as I write, and in the next couple of days we’ll go from wearing layers of clothes to finding the nearest fan.

Life in North Idaho. And, smiling amidst the mild upheaval here in the neighborhood.