We had a surprise bloom from some mystery foliage in the middle of the yard...it looks like a Louisiana iris.
At the edge of the tamed pasture, little yellow flowers are interspersed with little green berries, of which we have an abundance this year.
And the spiderwort was reliably opening up its blue blooms every morning, but it was at the stage where a heavy rain would knock it down...and it must have smelled delicious to Roux, who rolled in it every chance she could. Maybe we need to put a little picket fence around the bed - for support and protection.
We also had a cardinal make a nest in the big azalea at the corner of the front porch. She probably built the nest when the flowers had her completely hidden.
And Woody Woodpecker has been boldly visiting us with regularity.
Brian took a break from searching for the Temple of Doom (actually an archaeological dig in the Alexandria area) to spend a weekend with us. Our crawfish connection had a house emergency, so we called off the boil and took Bri-guy to D.I.'s for a taste Friday night. Saturday was stormy, but Sunday afternoon was nice, so we took out the boat to test the waters of West Cove with his friend and fellow archaeologist, Craig.
There was not much in the way of fish (too much rain, I guess), but it was a very pleasant afternoon on the water. When you get excited over a croaker and a hardhead, you know it was a slow fishing day.
Well now we come to the inspiration for the title of this post. I was in Beaumont on Friday afternoon, finishing up my ultimate task for my contracting gig, and I got a call from Denise. She was in the bath tub, but it wasn't a romantic message - she was in the middle of a tornado! I looked on the radar, and i could see a definite hook echo on the south edge of a supercell thunderstorm passing right over Longville. I didn't know there was a color past purple on the radar palette, but there is. It had just passed with ferocious rain and hail and she got out of the tub to tell me what she saw. All she could say was "Oh my God!" She was understandably pretty shaken up, so I called sister Cheryl in Moss Bluff who immediately drove up to see if she could help while I headed home. There was no real damage to the house, shed, RV, boat or car...but the trees took a lick.
We lost some big ones around the edge of the property...such a shame. A giant red oak on the south property line and two very large pine trees were uprooted, and a large water oak was snapped off at the base. We've got a lot of yard to clean up before we fool with those...I'll at least get some good firewood from the large branches on the two oaks.
The poor bird feeder also took a hit...but the hummingbird feeders were miraculously unscathed.
We called the guy who took out the sycamores for us, and he's headed here Monday. We have 7 or 8 pine trees in the yard with 1/3 to 1/2 of the top twisted off that will not survive. There are a lot of big branches caught up in the others that Denise and I can't tackle, so he's bringing a crew with his crane and bucket lift along with a bobcat to move the debris. We've been working to get what we could and give them room to work. Joe came and all three of us worked all day last Wednesday. Although we made a lot of progress, much still needs to be done. Here's some before and afters...
...and we've had a burn pile going for days.
All done so far old school...loppers, chainsaw, and wheel barrow...I feel like I've been worked over by a 2X4.
It may take a while to get the yard looking good, and the scars will show for a while. The bright side is that Denise wasn't hurt, and all of the giant limbs and tree tops missed hitting something valuable in the yard. The signature magnolia lost a few big branches, but doesn't seem to be beyond saving. I don't guess you get to be over 100 years old unless you're on the tough side.
We lived in Oklahoma for 3 years and had nothing like this. Pretty random. Maybe the next post will have something less apocalyptic (I sure hope so!)
No comments:
Post a Comment