During this past week I've been learning just how lucky I was to have only gotten a lot of sitcks, a few dead branches and tufts of leaves blown down onto my property.
Telephone poles were snapped off at their bases in at least one part of town, causing power outages of more than a couple of days.
All week I have been hearing chain saws going here and there in the area.
A maple tree down the street was damaged badly enough that the town has cut all of the branches off of it, and will be taking down the trunk in the near future. I missed that tree already yesterday, since it was the first in line along that part of the street where I would get to walk in the shade on hot summer days all the way back to my house after going downtown. To get the best shade along that stretch of the street I leave the sidewalk and walk along the edge of the road. Out of habit I did that at my usual spot and for a second I wondered why I wasn't in shade yet. Then I looked up at the bare trunk against the sky and remembered that that shade tree is gone now.
On Thursday a neighbour of mine who lives a few houses down the side street invited me into his back yard to show me what happened at his house. An ash tree had snapped off half way up and fallen onto his house. It hit the little dormer extension out of the roof that accomodates the stairway to the second floor. It mashed up the edge of the dormer and has exposed the wood used in the framing. The tree half then crashed down onto his deck and smashed his lovely new patio furniture set that he just had just bought in May.
Yes, I was very very lucky indeed.
