After the Ball

From the white oak

Happily, there isn't much to report in the aftermath of Irene's visit to our town.

The wind blew in a window in the northwest face of my attic a few minutes after the storm made its presence known. I had forgotten to replace the molding along the sides when I took the window out to repair a cracked pane a couple of years ago. I used the base of my favorite flashlight, Skull-Crusher II, as a hammer and soon had the molding nailed in place.

We lost power for a couple of hours in the wee smalls, which I discovered when I came down this morning: two hours and seven minutes, to be precise, according to the clock on the microwave. I could hear the buzzing chorus of chainsaws in the neighborhood, so there are a few limbs down. I haven't walked about yet, so there may be more than just a few limbs, but the chainsaws are no longer buzzing as I write this. I'm thinking there wasn't much for them to sing about, which is a good thing, a blessing.

The old sassafras is still standing, though a good-sized widowmaker fell onto the alley, directly below where it had been hanging since a windstorm broke it off last October. It was too high up for me to reach, and probably too heavy to carry had I been able to in the first place. Every so often, in slight breezes, it would teeter back and forth, a teasing reminder that it would eventually come down, and a warning that I'd better not be standing beneath it when it did!

Farther down the alley, toward the barn, the white oak lost a dead branch, so rotted that it shattered into a dozen punky pieces, posing no threat to anyone. Oh, and a lovely bunch of leaves with a single acorn still attached. I grabbed it before it was lost to the squirrels.

We continue to have strong gusts now and again in the steady breezes Irene left behind, maybe as strong as 15mph, which is not so unusual. We frequently have much harsher winds blow through town on a regular basis, though not with sustained strength as you have in a hurricane.

When I finish cleaning up the small mess on my property, I'll head out to see what happened in other parts of town. All in all, I think our town was very fortunate that all Irene did was wave at us on her way north. The eastern coast was not so lucky. They lost more than tree parts and attic windows, way more.

PS: That 15mph should be 35mph.