Serious storm...strong winds

 

The weather forecast warned that we would have storms with high mile per hour winds.

That was an accurate prediction!

I was trying to take photos of the trees being blown so hard by the wind so this photo shows the "before".

Moments later the old cedar tree is snapped off and the top is on the ground.

Next, one side of the fork of the tallest Sassafras tree has broken off, and also another Sassafrass snapped off down lower.

Lots of heavy blowing rain and a bit of small hail.

A peek out the front window...a maple limb down.

It was one of the worst storms I'd ever seen.  

Finally, it was over.  Oh nice, a rainbow!

It seemed a little scary to go outside but I had to see what was damaged.

Whew, very very fortunately, no damage to home, buildings, cars...or to the newly built garage.

Much of the tree breakage was in the group of trees behind the pool shed.

Here's the stump of a Sassafras  and the top of the old cedar tree.

A poor little peach tree split in half.

More Sassafras limbs. Not far from the new garage.

A redbud tree that can't recover.

Here's the big Sassafras trunk.

A tall section of a pear tree snapped off.

It was sad and a little shocking to see the old trees broken like this.  These were all trees that were here when we moved here in 1986.

There were all sorts of other things blown into the front yard from other places...trash, a flower pot and a giant white inflatable rectangular kids pool that looked like a mattress blowing up into the yard during the storm. (the owners came looking for it).

It didn't take long to begin hearing chain saws starting up in the surrounding area.

The next morning I had to go out and look it all over again.

This is a big branch from a maple at the side of the house.

There are a few tall skinny pine trees down in a couple of places beside the other driveway.

Cleared the mess from the pool. You can see the cedar stump and a bit of all the stuff that's down back there.

It's almost impossible to believe that nothing fell on the roof of that pool shed.

I'm very fortunate to have my son, The Sasquatch, willing and able to do the major clean up here.

I will have to have the tree company back out to take down a couple of the tall damaged trees.

What a storm!

Garage almost finished

 After a rainy day on Monday the garage installers were back on Tuesday morning.

It was a larger crew here again and they installed all the wall siding.

Inside the lower walls, they attached wood panels to protect against dings and dents.

 It looks good!

 Now today, they are adding roof panels, sliding double doors and other finishing touches.

It will be nice to have this space for storing the mower and trailer and be able to pull the Jeep inside when the weather is bad or snowy.

After the concrete floor guys are here, that is.

Garage going up!

 It's been interesting and exciting watching the new garage being put up this week.

After the materials were dropped off Tuesday...the installers were here Wednesday morning to get the work started.

After measuring and marking off the area, they went over the plan again with me and answered a few of my questions.

Their first step was drilling the holes to hold the post anchors in the ground.

I was hoping they wouldn't run into a lot of rock because that would have involved bringing in more equipment at my expense to bore through it.

Fortunately, no problems.

On Thursday, they had concrete brought in to fill in the post holes.

(I like to see men working!)

Well okay, you can drive through the yard.

Next, they framed the walls on the ground and raised them into place. 

By the end of the day,  they had the roof trusses and a few roof boards on.  

Today, just one man working on a lift, attaching brackets and other details.

Amazing how fast they get things done. Not at all like some workmen we have hired for home repairs and so forth sometimes in the past.  I'm so glad I went with this company.

biulding materials delivered

 An exciting day around here.  The truck delivering the supplies for putting up the new building was scheduled to be here.

The building site is closer to the other driveway...but the overhead lines are lower to the entrance there. 

They measured ahead and determined there would be only about 6 inches of clearance, so they asked to use the main driveway and go across the front yard.

Well, okay.  It was a bit of a tight squeeze turning in.

One man drove the truck and did all the unloading with the forklift.

The building salesman was here to make sure things went smoothly.

The truck was able to pull out of the other driveway after it was unloaded.

We nosed around in the supplies. Boards, siding, screws, door hardware, and even the weather vane for the roof. 

The workers are scheduled to be here tomorrow to get started!

Sewing...then un-sewing

 I was making good progress piecing together quilt blocks for this latest quilt.  Fairly simple and quick to run all the like sections through the machine in a row.

But...ut-oh!  I did not pay careful attention to my pattern and I had to rip out seams on 16 blocks.  

So at 4 seams per block, that amounted to 64 seams to rip and re-sew. Sheesh!

In the photo below, you seethe top section is the way I wrongly put it together. The bottom section is the correct way.

So that was a lot of time spent. I guess I learned a lesson about checking and double checking, but it's a lesson I should have learned from sometimes goofing up on quilts in the past.

If you can stand a little excitement- take a look at these freebies from our electric co-op.

On customer appreciation day we can drive through at their office and get this "bucket of bulbs"  it includes the bucket, light bulbs, yardstick, magnetic clip and recipe cards.

Getting free stuff is always fun.  Things change though...they used to have a sort of annual outdoor meeting/picnic event with food, entertainment, give-a-ways, and fun stuff for kids.

And here's something that I'm glad to have checked off the list.  The tree company guys sent a truck to pick up the old truck box shed and haul it away.

It has been useful for the last 25 or so years, but to me, always an ugly thing sitting there out back. 

Anyway, I'm glad someone else can get some use out of it now.

ready for new shed delivery

 A couple of months ago I arranged to have a new storage building built.  

I started out just thinking I'd like something big enough to put the riding mower in with some extra storage space.

Then I thought it would be nice to be able to park a car inside...especially during nasty winter weather so I planned for a bigger shed.

The first step was clearing the area by having a tree cut down and getting the old shed moved out of the way.

That's the old shed in the photo below...the green structure behind the dumpster.

It's actually a box truck box. I was worried I'd have to pay someone to take it away but the tree company owner said he could use it himself and drug it there off to the side to pick up later.

Next it was time for McCoy Excavating to come in and level the area and spread gravel.

I expected him to need to bring in trucks of dirt but he said "Nope, I can use the dirt that's here".

He was a fast worker and had the area ready in a few hours. He will be back after the shed is built to do the finish grading.

Next will be delivery of the shed materials.

Unrelated, but looking out over that same area, a man flying a motorized parachute (not sure what they are called). I've seen him flying over occasionally for the past two summers.  I can hear him getting close but it's so strange to see a man suddenly flying out from behind the trees!

Here is a zoomed in photo. I think they are not allowed to fly over residential areas and he usually doesn't pass directly above the house.

The flying is probably a lot of fun but if would be too scary for me!