Fire Drill

We had an unscheduled Fire Drill on Friday (a student pulled the alarm on his last day at school). Stupid is as stupid does and he was quickly caught out. Duh. It was a nice, sunny day and I grabbed my camera on the way out the door. We had to wait a while for the fire department to arrive and the 8th grade science teacher decided to continue with the lesson. I caught this on film and couldn't resist playing around with it.

Counting rings

The sunny spring-like weather of Presidents' Day weekend proved perfect for finishing the job of disposing or our downed trees. Jim got our chainsaw, which had bit the sawdust when he used it to cut up the fir tree that fell on our patio, back from the repair shop. He finished chopping the trunk of that tree into sections and then went to work on the plum tree.

We were amazed by the beauty of the inside of the tree. On the outside, the bark is rather dull, but the inside of the tree was full of color.

We hauled off three truckloads of limbs and branches to the local pig farm. We will miss our plum tree, but it appears to have a young self growing up from the roots that we shall leave to grow and replace its parent.

Gone with the wind . . .

The hurricane force winds of January 18 sheared off part of one tree and lay it uncomfortably close to our back door. We were at school. I expect it must have been a surprise for the dogs, but fortunately they had sense enough to get out of the way. Still, Rocky was even more leery of going outside as the storm continued. Gidget, as usual, was fearless and would leap, barking at the big wind gusts.

When I looked out the kitchen window, I could see our old plum tree being shoved by the high winds. It was apparent to me that it was tilting from the roots, and that as soggy as the ground was, we were probably going to lose it. It reached the tipping point before we went to bed.


On Saturday the wind and rain, while not so fierce, continued, but we went out that afternoon and were able to cut up the long tree limb that lay on the patio and haul if off into the yard. Then the chain saw threw its chain and, as it was starting to get dark, we gave up for the day. The big fruit tree will be an even bigger job, to cut up, and then we will need to haul everything off. Hopefully, someone who wants free firewood will step up and volunteer to help out.