Friday, November 18, 2011

For the Beauty of the Earth

Last week I thought I might just drive off the side of the road.  The view on my commute home was stunning.  The full moon rising, the dusky colors, the snow on the ground.  Really a remarkable and serene landscape.  I wish I had the means to capture it just as I could see it, but this will have to do.  I stopped a number of times one day driving home, trying to snap pictures.  This is from the pull-off at monkey hill.

And this week if I went off the road, it would most certainly be the wind that pushed me over the edge.  It's been howling for sure, but Saturday night we came home from the party and tucked ourselves in to a long winter's nap.  I slept pretty well, but Thomas couldn't block out the strains of our home against the wind.  The sounds of whipping and ripping and buffeting...too much to take!

In the morning I awoke to a special delivery from Marie for the bake sale at church, and she pointed out the damage.  I peered around and saw where the skirting had been crushed in from the wind, and the wind now trapped blew out the end.  It was no light breeze.  Marie and David were tending to the loss of shingles and the swamp cooler from off the roof.

Our drive to Cimarron revealed limbs down, trees down - four foot diameter trunks, fences and roofs crushed, dumpsters tossed, a semi trailer overturned, trees uprooted.  Philmont saw extensive damage (great pictures posted on facebook).  Cimarron had a few small limbs down, but not bad.

When we got home, we got a call from Marie letting us know Mom & Pop were cleaning up if we could join to help.  We arrived to see David and Pop on the roof repairing shingles.  Daniel was trying to lasso one of three large widowmakers.
 I climbed this tree to tie the rope on.  Thomas went for the pole-chainsaw because one of the branches had wedged itself from being pulled free.
While we waited for Thomas, Andres, Daniel, and I enjoyed a game of toss the rope over the branch.  It could be a computer game - trying to negotiate the angle from which you need to pull to remove the branch.  You can see the end poking down into the picture.

After we liberated this branch from the tree, we moved on to the next, though the fence that got blown in had to be removed first.  Sadly, no more pictures.  Rumors are the winds were over 100 MPH.  They haven't let up, though not quite at such high speeds.

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