Storm damage from July 1st & 2nd

 Not to bore you with all the photos, but I do want to record the damage. It helps me to process it, and figure out a plan of attack. We'll have to get someone in, and I need to figure out what I want done. 

I'm feeling a little better today. It's a bit of a shock, and to see those majestic poor white pines... The sun brings a new day. It was a nice view at 5:30!

Tree House White Pine Tree

We spotted the fallen pine tree branches from the house, the next day, July 2nd, another big fall. These beautiful old white pine trees are susceptible to the wind. This is the tree with the tree house. It whipped off the top in two spots.

Before and after...

Pine Tree at the Frogpond

We've lost the top of one beautiful old pine, in the forest just along the path to the pond. 

Down the hill to the meadow a small job.

Deal Elm out front

That is not all. I didn't explore here until the next day. Our rescue squirrel tree is down. The 3 squirrels have moved on and out, which is good. It was an old Elm, ravaged by Dutch Elm disease. It was a perfect spot for the squirrel nest box.

2012 – the sumacs have since died, shallow soil, climate change,
lack of moisture... the original owners mowed all of this. 
The integrity of the Sumac grove was compromised.

2026 the squirrel nest box

The path down to the meadow is blocked. Glad I mowed prior to the storm. 

No one was home. 

The Five Sisters

One trunk fell a number of years ago. When a tree falls in the forest – 2016. We are sort of down to 3 sisters, plus two half sisters.

Barry's Aspen Grove out back

Barry Beaver's Aspen trees are down. In the spring photo you can see all the older Aspen trees on the right, reflecting the sunshine. They are all down. 

All gone.

The path is quite blocked. 

I think we need to wait to see how much Barry eats and/or moves. In the fall we can call in our people to harvest the wood. Burning Aspen isn't as good as other hardwoods, the BTU is very low in comparison. This is why Barry prefers Aspen and Willow. 

Barry has continued to work on it... the doe did an inspection.

From there I went on down to the point. (Maybe that's where I got my tick, a nymph!) The edge of the wetland is chaotic.

What else in the neighbourhood?

We drove to the village to get gas for my lawn tractor. We passed this sweet little church. They lost a big Maple tree which appears on Google maps from Autumn.

Looks like lots of people to help. I heard chain saws for several days from a couple km away.

What did we get, rain or snow?

We had rain (14 mm/half"), freezing rain, snow (9 cm Thursday, 7 cm last night = 16cm)!

☔ 🌨 ☔ 🌨 ☔ 🌨 ☔ 🌨 ☔ 🌨 ☔ 🌨 ☔ 🌨

A massive system. Turning counter-clockwise, starting with a comma shape, it dumped on us. 

In the afternoon, Wednesday, we had hail! 

The winds brought down a lot of wires between Wednesday and Thursday. It began to the west, and spread to eastern Ontario. 

We were lucky! We were surrounded by people who'd lost power. Ours went out in the wee hours, and came back on at 3 a.m.

Percy would complain if he could talk. He is there, in the pond, since my 60 gallon tank leaked! 

The mourning dove just sat there for a long time. It looks totally ticked off with the snow! The trees are drooping Friday morning, today. We expect 5 ℃ today, and maybe the snow will change over to rain. 

It accumulated on the back deck. I had the aquarium pump out back, preparing to clean it. I shall wait.

✿ The daffodils are happy, cozy under the snow. They should be fine as the snow blankets them, and holds in whatever heat there is in the ground.

🐹 Fred, 🐇 Labbit and 🦨 Skunk are hunkered down in dens. Suddenly – not a sign of them.

I ended up building a Leprechaun. Instead of shovelling the back deck (again) I summoned some motivation to make lemons out of lemonade. Sadly, we had another 7 cm overnight!

The good thing is that the ground is warm from our nice weather last month. I won't need to shovel!

 

It looks pretty. 

I worry about this pine tree, however. It lost a lot of branches in past storms [❄️ A Sunday storm ☃️, Dec. 2023]. We'd just had this tree cleaned up April 3rd, from the December 2022 storm.  We spent thousands of dollars getting them cleaned up. 

 

The two bags remaining from the ditch diving are buried under the snow!

🐡 It is still snowing today.  Indoors, my goldfish plant is in bloom, as is the orchid cactus. They are a welcome sight. I can look forward to spring. I appreciate seeing it in blog posts from warmer climes!