Wind

I'm trying to get everything organized at my office so that my life won't be crazy when I return from Scotland. But it seems that every case I have has blown up somehow, requiring meetings, and issue statements, and draft proposals. For three months, things have been relatively easy, with only an occasional frantic day. But this entire week has been awful. And it promises to get worse before it gets better. I can't wait to get out of the office for two weeks, far away, in another country: Scotland!

We had a wild storm today. It hit us at around 4:00 in the afternoon, with sideways rain and branches blowing across the streets, power outages and falling trees. When we got home from work, we discovered that four trees had gone down around our house. Not our trees, our neighbors' trees. A 150-year-old oak tree fell between two neighbors' houses, messing up the roof of one and the side of the other, but not crushing either. This is a giant grandfather of a tree, and it laid itself down right between the two houses.

Then my neighbor on the other side lost my all-time favorite cherry tree, one that I have watched grow as my son grew. I used to rock him as a baby and look out of the window at the blossoms on that tree. It was much smaller then, but it was absolutely beautiful. Every spring when it bloomed, I was transported back to those magical baby days. The wind pulled the tree up by its roots, and tossed it toward our wrap-around porch, but missed. We think there had to have been a microburst, not quite a tornado. The branches were covered with almost-ripe cherries, and some of them blew onto the porch. This same neighbor also lost another, smaller cherry tree, and a dogwood. In the front of his house, an old oak tree lost two very large branches. My neighbor pointed up into one of his remaining trees, and there in the branches was a roof shingle. We could not find where shingles were missing from our houses or any of the houses around us.

None of my own beloved oak trees (including the 250-year-old white oak) was damaged. Some windy pruning occurred, but nothing severe. The crepe myrtle we planted last year looks fine, as do all the dogwoods. And the roses and azaleas seem to be really enjoying all the rain.

We had another loud thunderstorm about an hour or so ago, but now there is just a steady rain. It makes a lovely, soothing noise.