The wind blew and the trees fell

This past week, we had a doozy of a windstorm. It started blowing here about noon and went to full force at about 1:30. I grew up here in the Pacific Northwest, am accustomed to life beneath the trees with the coastal winds that blow several times each year, but this was UNREAL. I'm not sure that I've ever felt it blow this hard. And oddly enough, at about 4:30 pm, it was like God turned the switch off and the wind stopped. Very strange.

In any case, during the course of the storm, we ended up with at least four trees down on our property. A year ago, we hired a faller to come in and take out 13 hemlocks close to the house, several of which were rotten, and we are so thankful that we spent the money and had it done. The four trees that fell in this storm were out along the driveway, made a huge mess with limbs and debris, but our home was not threatened. One of them was a BIG one, which took out a couple others on its way down. I got the adventure of driving the van across our yard to get out the driveway that day, but other then a minor four-wheeling event in a minivan, no major thrills. I have to admit that it was fun to see Grant's face when he got off the school bus and had to climb over a fallen tree to get to the house. He came in the door and said, "Uh, Mom?? Did you know we have a tree in the driveway??" No kidding. :)

In any case, Mike is out playing lumberjack this morning. His chainsaw will cut up all the limbs and the smaller-midsize trees, but we're probably going to have to hire someone to come in and do something with the big one. Its going to require a serious tree-eating piece of machinery. Since we don't have any sort of wood-burning heat, I guess Dad & Mom will get first crack at a bunch of free firewood.

Hey Marj--If you guys have some sort of wood heat in your house, I'll give you a free load of firewood for Christmas to take back to Spokane in your trunk with you!!!