Upon my return

As we pulled into the driveway, even in the dark I could tell something was amiss. The branches on one of the flowering plum trees jutted out into our path. But it would have to wait until morning because of a lot of other matters that needed tending. I have a saying about vacations: You pay for them before going as well as after, and I'm not just talking about money. At least I still had a home to come back to.

It seems that there were a couple wet and heavy snowfalls while I was gone, and some good gusts. What I saw in daylight was worse than I expected. Three of the four plum trees had sustained substantial damage, two of which required the chainsaw for larger limbs plus a lot of hand sawing with one of those extending orchard saws. I took out about 25% in two trees and 10% in another. That was Tuesday.

Tuesday night we received another five inches of heavy snow and out came another 15% in three trees and a small amount in the one that had managed to avoid taking part of the brunt. I had enough branches to make another tree, minus a trunk. Yet, one of the trees was listing bad from the ground up, so I could still get a base for my accumulated limbs.

Last night added another six inches with a power outage from 0300 to 0830. The generator kept the house going but I dare say I have more cutting to do. How much remains to be seen once we get some thaw. Of course, with almost a foot of snow on the ground and the temp about 50° today, we'll be sure to keep an eye out for flooding.

In better times.