217: Sometimes she roars

(Apple blossom.)

Mother Nature roared through here beginning around 2:00 this morning.  Literally roared.  And howled, moaned, screeched, and an assortment of other noises.  The news reports are that we had sustained winds of 30-40 mph, with gusts up to 69 mph (close to hurricane force).  Right now our winds are around 22 mph with gusts up to 41 mph.

Mother Nature was on a tear, that’s for sure.  She ripped shingles off the roof, brought down trees, tree branches, and street lights and signs.  She knocked out the power for a good portion of the day.

I have been out a few times today, surveying some of the damage.  I never thought I’d write (or say) this but… I think Hurricane Ike, when he came through back in 2008 (I think), might have done us a favor.  The power company certainly seems to have learned a lesson from Ike, and we didn’t have to wait a week this time to have our power restored.  That may be because the power company has done a good job of cutting down trees and branches that might interfere with the power lines.

We had a few shingles fly off the roof, but it could be worse.  There were times during the wee (and dark) hours of the morning when I thought the entire roof might fly off.   Since M was away on an overnight trip, this made for a rather long night.  The cats didn’t care much for the noisy wind either, so at least I had their company (presence) in my wakefulness.  Not that the cats stayed awake.  Oh no.  Once they were cuddled up next to me, they went right to sleep.

There is a clearing in the woods we didn’t have prior to this wind storm.  I couldn’t really get back in there to look at it because the wind has continued to blow fiercely all day.  I could hear the trees creaking and snapping as I walked the perimeter of the woods.  Going into the woods doesn’t seem like a safe thing to do just yet.  I could see a pile of downed trees that looks like it was blown towards the edge of the woods.  The trees are of the tall and skinny variety, probably not very old.  As much as it saddens me to see trees downed, it may turn out to be a good thing for the trees left standing.  This will give them more room to stretch and grow, as we have been lax about thinning the trees in the woods, figuring Mother Nature will take care of it (and boy, did she!).

I took photos today while out and about, but I don’t have time to upload them right now.  The power outage put me way behind schedule with a lot of things.  I should be playing catch-up instead of posting, and would be except for that little matter of a commitment.  The photos of the apple blossoms were taken yesterday.  Surprisingly, the blossoms managed to hang in there.  Some are even starting to open today.

I think we’ve really angered Mama Earth.  She’s been having tantrums all over the place this year.  I just saw the news about the tornadoes in the southern U.S. which killed (as of this posting) at least 272 people.

We are very lucky here in the Bogs that all we got were big winds, some rain, and several hours of inconvenience.  It could have been so much worse.  My thoughts go out to those affected by last night’s storms.

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