Nothing quite describes the feeling you get when you awoken at 2:30am to the unmistakable sound of timber breaking outside your windows. I knew that a front would be working its way up the eastern seaboard throughout Sunday and the predicted rains came (albeit a little late). What I didn’t know was that high winds were accompanying those rains. Once the sound settled and I knew the house had not been struck (nor power knocked out) I hurriedly dressed, scavenged a flashlight and headed outside to survey the yard. It sounded like it was on the north side of the yard so that’s where I started. Nothing visible, I worked my way counterclockwise around the yard checking fences and trying to establish whether I would be buying my neighbor a roof. I only found one decent branch that fell in the back part of the property without major consequence. Throughout the remainder of the evening, we stared wide eyed at the ceiling each time we heard a crash outside.
Dawn finally came and I gathered my boots and coffee mug for a backyard expedition. I finally laid eyes on the destruction that had escaped me in the early morning hours. A small pine had snapped about 6′ above ground level and fallen onto Ry’s tree house, which was currently decked out in Halloween attire. It could have been a lot worse as the deck was unharmed and major structural components are fine, but some of the railings suffered a direct hit as well as a puncture to the slide. Its yet to be known whether I can just fix the slide, or will I have to replace that panel.
Ugh… TREES!!
