Friday, November 4, 2011

Early snow October 25-26

We interrupt our regularly scheduled "Beth's cabin vacation posts" to bring an update on our early snows and tree damage! The evening of October 25, rain and then snow began falling--just as the weather people had predicted.
By Wednesday morning, there were 10.25 inches on our deck rail, and snow continued lightly throughout the morning. You can see from this picture how the trees still had leaves and they are bent over by the heavy snow. None of these trees are on our property.

We were very glad that Emily had removed the trampoline mat from its in-ground setting the day before, and that the pavilion was also taken down from the deck just in time!

When I took Jason to work at 8:00, we saw that there had been much devastation to our town's trees. There were branches down in almost every yard and even in the streets. Part of the town was without electricity. ACE Hardware, where Jason works, had to be open with no electricity until 11 a.m. They had a generator to run one cash register and used flashlights to take customers to what they needed to buy. They sold a lot of snow shovels that day!
At lunchtime, we were feeling grateful that our tree had not broken. While Emily watched out the window, our Linden tree in front gave way and broke 4 different large branches. Thankfully, nothing was under it to be damaged, like happened for other people in town.

The snow was very wet and heavy.

That afternoon, Jason and Emily built snow walls and had a snowball fight.


On Friday morning, we had Lincoln here to be babysat, so the kids took him to a sledding hill near his house to play in the snow.



This is what our tree looked like on Saturday morning, when Rowen and Emily started cutting out the broken parts. Nearly all the leaves fell off because of the snow.

Looking at the tree from the street view.

Rowen cutting out the broken parts.

There was still snow on the truck he had to clean off so he could haul the branches away. Because it was so warm just days before, the ground was warm enough to melt the snow quickly.

Rowen surveying the mess.

One of the two truck loads of branches ready to take downtown to the branch dump.

Rowen and Emily cut up the larger branches for future firewood.

The pile of firewood from the tree.

How the surgery looked this week after we got another 9 inch snow exactly a week later than the first one!