Wow! That was a whirlwind of a weekend. Emphasis on wind!
I had taken Friday off to oversee the tree cutters taking down two massive pine trees in the backyard of our Reservoir house. Pine beatles and the drought two years ago had taken their toll and determining whether or not they were going to fall toward the house or away from the house didn’t really matter because they could possibly take out the kitchen, or in the other direction take down a fairly new fence. Professional help was needed.
A tornado last year snapped a dead pine in the woods, out beyond my property line, and set it down on the back patio, just outside the kitchen door. That area is still not the same and the top of the tornado tree is still hanging in the tip-top of an oak tree directly above my daughter’s old playhouse, which is now a storage facility (junk facility) for wife Danny and me.
We’ll just have to wait and see which way that falls, because after the two pines on Friday my tree-cuttin’ budget is now zilch!
Mr. Sammy Watson, from Morton, has been wanting to cut trees in our yard for nearly 30 years now, but we liked the trees when they were living, and I turned him down over and over again. This time was different, and I said yes and his son, Sammy, and a helper showed up Friday to take ‘em down.
I watched the show from the patio.
The proximity of the trees meant that part of the cyclone fence that runs across the back of our backyard had to be removed before they could fell the trees and that was the easy part.
The younger Sammy then scooted about halfway up the same oak that holds the top of the tornado tree to remove some branches that would interfere with the safe drop of the largest of the two trees that was going to have to fall in a space about ten feet wide between the playhouse and the wooden fence on the side of the yard.
He took care of that without a hitch with a chainsaw that was dangling from his waist on a rope while running the whole time. Looked like fun to me, but I’m a little old for that and my legs probably couldn’t do the scooting with those spiked climbers attached to the bottom of them like his did.
In my own defense I have cut down many a tree with my own “smaller” chainsaws, and I have scooted up and down more trees than I can remember — especially as a child — but I’ve never had a set of spikes helping me out. Plus, I always tied my chainsaw to a longer rope and pulled it up to me once I got myself stabilized on a good, solid branch up there somewhere. Never fell, never got hurt. At least not as an adult.
Anyway, up Sammy went. Down Sammy came. And then it was time for the real show.
And what a show it was.
My dad would have really liked it!
I think I’m becoming my dad.
They took this giant slingshot thing and shot a weight tied to a light line way up over a limb in the top of the first tree then pulled up a heavy rope that tied the tree off to a Bobcat grapple back a ways, they pulled the rope tight, fired up a really big chain saw and took it down in a single swoop.
Tree two was taller, bigger around, and that slingshot thing had to shoot that weight a whole lot higher than tree number one. But, my men knew what they were doing, got ‘er up, tied it off, and cut it down. It fell perfectly and that’s what I yelled to Sammy, who was obviously pumped up with adrenaline by then.
They did a good job.
And it is a good thing, because by Sunday afternoon that crazy windstorm was cranking up and we could hear trees, and limbs, falling all around. We were sitting out back watching the wind swirl the pollen from the living pine trees, and watching those wormy looking blossom things falling from the oak trees, and there would be a crackle sound here and a crackle sound there and down to the ground we would watch a crashing limb crash. Just not in our yard, though, thank goodness.
I will have to say “crazy windstorm” might be an understatement.
All that tree cutting supervising had tuckered me out, and Danny and I wanted to enjoy the last few days of her spring break without any work involved. We stretched out in the outside easy chairs and it was kind of cool at first, but then all of a sudden it was kind of hot.
Off came my shirt, and the sun on my bare skin felt good. A little while later my legs were getting really hot in those blue jeans, so I went in and changed into some shorts. You thought I was going to say I just took them off too, didn’t you? That is not beyond me! Never has been!
It was just the opposite on Sunday as I started out in shorts and then that wind started whirling and the clouds joined in and it was kind of visa versa in the wardrobe department.
We went to bed Sunday night with the air conditioner blowing on high, and the wind blowing on high too, and then, of course, the power went out because somebody, somewhere, did not get their trees cut down. Shame on them.
When I got up Monday morning it was extra cold in the house and the heat had to be turned on — thank goodness the power had come back on — and then on the way to work it was snowing.
Weird windstorm indeed!
