Whadda Wind!

Yesterday we had a wind storm like I have never seen before. No rain, just wind. And it winded (!) ALL DAY LONG. I don't mind admitting, it was quite the scary experience.

Supposedly the area experienced winds up to 75 mph and there was extensive damage throughout the county. Needless to say, lots of trees fell on power lines causing widespread outages. Some reports are that three-quarters of our very large county was out of power. Some was restored around one o'clock this afternoon after being out since yesterday. Other people are being told it may be a day or two before they are back on grid.

We have a solar power system that provides about half the energy we need. So anytime there is sunshine, we run on solar and store any extra in our battery bank. Yesterday was very gray with no sun at all but we were fortunate that we had enough battery power that we could keep going on solar. This morning dawned sunny so we were fine on solar again, and then in early afternoon grid power came back on for us.

We lost many trees but were fortunate none hit any buildings or vehicles.

This is what our main trail into our woods looks like today.

We had no frost with the cold front that blew in with the wind, but this window box of impatiens looks like it's been frozen solid, doesn't it? The box was lush and chock full of blossoms yesterday morning . . . before the wind. That's what caused the damage. Strictly wind damage.

We did suffer one loss. This is (was?) our high-sided farm trailer.

Roy's Uncle George was a farmer and right after we got married, he said he didn't need this piece of equipment anymore and offered it to us. We quickly snapped it up and have had and used it continually for forty-six years. We've rebuilt it twice. We've hauled horses, pigs, sheep, chickens and goats (lots of goats!) in it. Roy's shoveled more loads of manure into it and then out of it than he ever wants to see again. The summer we moved up here from Illinois it made nine (yes, NINE) trips full to the brim. We've hauled countless loads of hay, feed, building supplies, and firewood in it. It's transported boats, canoes, kayaks, and motorcycles. And lots of happy kids on top tromping down loose hay the years we had nineteen acres of hay land.

Our good neighbor came over this afternoon after hearing of the tree falling on the trailer. He said he wondered if he and Roy would have a winter project in his fully equipped workshop rebuilding the trailer. But as soon as he got a look at it, he realized (as we already had) that the basic frame is way too smooshed out of shape to salvage.

Oh, well. It's not like it's something that can't be replaced. But it hit me as soon as I saw what had happened to it was that even though it was just a rusty-old-seen-better-days trailer, there are one heck of a lot of memories of our life tied up in it.

Kinda silly, isn't it? But doggone, I'm gonna miss that trailer.