Friday, July 29, 2011

Knock on Wood

The storm came through about 2 a.m. I heard a crack, which woke me up, and my eyes were assaulted by rapid fire lightning bursts. Knowing Pilchard gets scared, I got out of bed and went to the living room to recline in my recliner. After all, what good is having a recliner, if you don't recline.

Mija joined me after a few minutes. I know Pilchard was behind the recliner but she did not budge during the storm. I dozed. Pilchard joined me in the recliner. I heard what sounded like a large engine, opened my eyes and saw red flashing lights. There was a fire truck coming down the street. They went to the intersection north of me, turned right and headed that way. There used to be a small transformer station over there. It's possible there was a downed wire or something awry with that. They were there for a little over a half hour and then left.

Yes, the power went out but I was awakened shortly after it went out and I stayed up through this storm; 20 minutes of heavy winds and rain; so I reset the alarm and the time and went back to bed.

I thought something looked strange as I looked out the front windows at the truck as it lumbered by. This morning, I was greeted with this view.


Of all the places a branch could have fallen, this is probably the best place. It doesn't block my drive, to the right. It doesn't block my neighbor's to the north and it's not blocking the people across the street. There is debris across the front yard which I had to clean up to leave the drive.

The street view.


As things go, this is minor compared to some other branches or whole trees I've seen downed this year. I called the city and left a message with the person who, I guess, handles this kind of thing. The gal who answered the phone said the city is responsible if it's in the street and this clearly is. It's not that big of a branch that, if they simply detach it from the tree and put it in my front yard, I can't cut it into pieces to be hauled away. Yes, I do have a small chain saw and I know how to use it. This is the first time in the nearly 30 years I have lived at this address, that I've had a hunk of tree fall from the front. I had one in the back about 10 years ago.

The storm must have come from the north as this greeted me when I opened the back door to leave.
North is to the right. I simply need to get the loppers out and lop this off. I'll have to see if my hands are improved enough now. I tried to do this in June and got nowhere because I couldn't properly grip the loppers. 

The National Weather Service says this is the wettest July on record. We're at 10+ inches of rain, which shatters the record set in 1886. It's now the 8th wettest month, period. I am probably jinxing myself but, so far, I have not had water in the basement. It's been soaking in and, I think, coming down too hard to come inside. It seems to be heavy rain, heat, heat, heat, heat, heat, heavy rain, heat for 5 more days, more rain, so it's kind of like it dries out. The grass in front of the house was going dormant in spite of all this water.

I use this former container for kitty litter as a mop bucket. I had washed the floor in the back room and, knowing we had rain predicted, left it out as kind of a rain gauge. Yesterday, there was 2 inches in it. This morning, there was 4.5. Overnight, I got 2.5 inches of rain. That's a lot. Well, I haven't had to wash out the birdbath. 

It appears it will be quiet until Tuesday. It will be hot but the no rain will give me a chance to clean up what this storm knocked down.

Beverage:  English Breakfast tea

Deb

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