Monday, August 14, 2006

Pardon my French ...

... But holy crap!!

In the 20 minutes it took me to cook my dinner, it started getting dark, then it started raining then the wind started blowing. I was looking out my kitchen door to see how the trees were doing. They were blowing horizontally. I figured I better go look out front.

Here's what I saw:

1. My tree! My beautiful tree!!
2. My car! Too close to my car!!!
3. That is rain blowing horizontally across my neighbor's roof across the street.

Yeah. In that 20 minutes, I got .90 inch of rain, winds up to 70 MPH. Split my beautiful Bradford pear tree right in half and blocked the street. Came within 10 inches of landing on my car. Knocked the birds and their nests out of the tree.

4. Here's from the street side. You can sort of see how much fell into the street.
5. Hero with a chain saw from the city.
6. The tree splits right down the middle. A few years ago the opposite side split off during an ice storm. I'm afraid my tree is a goner for sure this time.
7. One of the birds' nests.

Some of the poor, stunned birds were laying in the yard. I thought they were dead, but a mockingbird managed to fly away when I approached it. I am afraid of what's under all the branches that I'll find later.

NOTE: It was actually quite dark outside, explaining why these are blurry. I had to use the night setting which lightened up the images, but the shutter speed was too slow to keep a crisp focus. But I think you get the idea.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

1 comment:

Genevieve Netz said...

I am so sorry about your tree. It is truly always something, isn't it?! Bradford pears are pretty trees, but they are susceptible to wind and ice damage, unfortunately. The mockingbirds like them because their branches are so dense -- I hope the birdies are OK.