Ever.
Today dawned cool and beautiful.
You would never have guessed that the clear blue sky had been a black mass of wind yesterday ... even if it was only less than 5 minutes.
It was a very long 5 minutes.
I was gone all morning and didn't get home until around 2:00 this afternoon.
I changed clothes, dug out my rakes, a broom, trash bins and limb cutters.
Then I hit the front yard.
It only took me about 30 minutes to realize that I had made an error in judgement.
It took me less than 30 minutes to have about an 8' pile of large branches stacked near the curb.
And those branches came from only one area of my yard.
An area that covered about 20 feet.
A tiny fraction of my property.
My tree-laden, thirsty-to-the-point-of-death, tornado-scarred property.
For some reason, the beautiful blue sky gave a bit more clarity today than it did yesterday, post storm.
That, and possibly the fact that branches have continued to fall from 60+ feet pine trees for the last 24 hours.
It's funny how much more detail you can see when the large, dead branches have cleared out.
That's when you discover that what you thought was a tree top sitting in your pool .... is actually about 1/3 of a very tall, very wide tree.
The other 2/3?
They each were sheared (though not completely .... very much like their counterpart that fills my pool) and are hanging in two different directions.
One is hanging precariously above my wooden fence.
The one that was replaced a couple of years ago after that last little wind storm we like to call Ike.
You may remember him .... if you lived here.
It's hard to forget 2 weeks of no power .... in September .... in Houston.
But I digress.
Back to my yard ....
See that area of blue sky and fluffy white clouds? It used to be full of green leaves and branches.
Ditto on the blue space here. This is the 1/3 that's hanging by a thread, and yet in my pool. It takes up a lot more of my pool than is apparent in this picture. I think it's enjoying the water. Even if it is chlorinated.
And another. Sigh ....
Well, it didn't fall so much ..... it was kind of "snapped":
This is only part of a very, very tall tree in my front yard (it's well over 60 feet high). The mass of leaves
in the middle of the picture is actually a very large, very thick .... and very dead branch. It needs to be taken down before it falls down .... and takes out a car (the tree is near my driveway) .... or a person. Or 20 or so persons, if they happen to be gathering beneath said tree. Whatever.
This is a closer shot, which is still a bit unclear. The leaves of the branch are hanging to the right and in the middle of the tree. The main part of the branch is to the left of the tree .... it's kind of lodged between the trunk of the tree and a branch on the front.
This is one of my magnolia trees .... which has also lost a large branch, mostly. It continues to hang by strings of pulp. Or what may one day be pulp.
This tree? It contains another very large, very dead branch that will one day dislodge and be a huge pain unless we take it down. It's hard to see, but all of the leaves in the center of the tree that are a lighter shade of green ..... those would belong to the dead branch.
OK, that's enough horticulture for one day.
Suffice it to say that I underestimated the size of the job that awaited me in my yard.
This job is WAY too big for me.
For me .... and my equipment.
What was I thinking?!
