MY SUNDAY ‘CATCH-UP’ POST ABOUT THE STORM’S AFTERMATH

Tonight’s post is actually my Sunday post which I was too tired to put together Sunday night.  I have written a couple paragraphs at the end of this post to catch me up with today’s (Monday) events………………………………….

 

We didn't see or hear the giant snow monster roll over us in the night but roll over us it sure did & it tore down power lines, trees, & tree limbs. Even the tree limb that landed on our roof didn't wake me up but around 5:30 a.m. the frigid air surrounding me sure did. Our house was cold & dark. No power:(( A quick look out the window told me it wasn't just us, power was out at our neighbors as well & the ground was completely covered in snow. In fact the whole Park was dark. Soon found out our entire surrounding area was without power to several thousand people. Little did we know that power would remain off for the next 20+ hours. Tree branches had brought down a lot of power lines. A steady snowfall overnight had dropped about 3 inches of heavy wet snow & with leaves still on the trees the weight of all that snow bent branches & small trees right to the ground. Had the leaves not still been on the trees there would have been a lot less tree damage everywhere. 
 

WHEN I STEPPED OUT OUR FRONT DOOR THIS MORNING THIS IS BASICALLY WHAT I SAW

OUR POOR BASSWOOD TREE WAS IN SHAMBLES

THIS LILAC TREE BESIDE OUR WOODSHED IS BENT TO THE GROUND

 

LOOKING UP OUR STREET WITH PHEEBS IN THE LEFT PHOTO & KELLY WAY UP THERE IN THE RIGHT PHOTO 

 

PHOTOS IN OUR FRONT YARD

SURPRISINGLY WE DIDN’T HAVE TOO MUCH DAMAGE IN OUR BACK YARD BUT DID LOSE MOST OF THAT BENT OVER DOGWOOD
With a single candle casting a soft light in our frigid kitchen it didn't take us long to make the decision to move to our Motorhome real quick. I slipped out & fired up the generator & furnace but oh my what a mess awaited me soon as I stepped out of our house door. The heavy wet overnight snow had devastated our beautiful Basswood tree right outside our porch. The umbrella like canopy we had been so careful to shape over the years was in total ruin with two thirds of it's branches broke down. A large branch from our front yard Sunburst Locust lay on our sunroom roof & another Locust branch lay bent down & broken over our frog pond.  Later found 2 more broken branches on that tree.  Up & down our street more broken & still breaking branches. As Kelly & I walked around we had to be careful because the wet snow was still falling & adding more weight to already over burdened tree limbs. There would be a 'crack' & a 'whoosh' as limbs kept falling with a thump. Snow sliding off pine bows fell on us with snow getting down the backs of our necks. 

KELLY SNAPS A FEW PICS WITH HER BLACKBERRY

 

RICHARD & GAYLE’S PLACE

NEIGHBOR MONICA’S ONCE BEAUTIFULLY SHAPED MAGNOLIA TREE SURE TOOK A BIG HIT…I’LL GO OVER TUESDAY & SEE WHAT CAN BE SALVAGED

 

NEIGHBOR’S PLACES (CLICK TO ENLARGE)

  

Despite all the broken trees & limbs there was a rather spectacular upside to this downside & the sheer beauty we were seeing was truly awe inspiring.  I'll have to let my photos try to convey a little bit of what we saw.  Many photos later I finally set my camera down & began our large property clean-up. In the meantime it was nice & toasty warm in the rig & Kelly had coffee brewing. How fortunate we have a Motorhome with heat, hot water, & toilet facilities. When the power goes out in our Park there is no back-up generator or pump to supply water to all the homes.

WET SNOW SLIDING OFF A PINE BOW CAN BE SEEN COMING DOWN AT THE LEFT
My chainsaw isn't sharp enough to slice a pound of butter in half so I had to rely on my trusty old Swede saw for cutting up broken tree limbs. Just as well because I'm not a chain saw kind a guy anyway. As mentioned earlier the snow was very wet & I went through 3 pairs of gloves & one complete change of soggy clothes before I had the majority of branches cut up & piled in several heaps. I was at least able to clear the driveway & move the Jeep over. Despite damage to our trees & shrubs we were very lucky that it wasn't any worse. The locust branch laying on our roof didn't do any damage & in fact was still partially attached to the tree. Too high for me do anything about & Ken our Park's owner said he would get it with his long reach boom arm machine at some point in the future.

 
Bacon & eggs never smelled better than when I opened the Big EEE's door & stepped inside. I was cold & wet & there was Kelly busily working away at whooping up a big breakfast. Best bacon & eggs ever. Another upside to our power outage was the fact it gave us a chance to try out our new furniture arrangement in the rig. Didn't take us long to realize we had definitely made the right decision in replacing our dining room table & tub chair with 2 recliners. And how nice to type much of this post sitting in my Horton recliner instead of sitting at the kitchen table on a hard old stiff kitchen chair. 

MORNING COFFEE WHILE THE MOTORHOME WARMS UP

 

YEP IT WAS COLD & DAMP IN THE RIG UNTIL THE PROPANE FURNACE MADE IT ALL NICE & TOASTY

A FEW HOURS LATER IT WAS BACON & EGGS

OH BOY OH BOY HERE COMES THE YUMMIES

After breakfast we fired up the Jeep & waited until it was toasty warm inside then took a drive into Bayfield to have a look round. Some tree limbs down across power lines with power crews working on repairs. We didn't see lights anywhere & driving down main street we saw 'closed' signs in dark windows. The whole town was without power.  Definitely not a good day for merchants hoping to do a little week-end business at the close of the season.  A couple convenience stores had generators going & were able to make coffee for a few folks.   

TWO BOYS ON BAYFIELD’S BEACH MAKING A SNOW MAN AS THEIR DOG LOOKS ON

BAYFIELD’S SLUSHY MAIN STREET

CLAN GREGOR SQUARE

PIONEER PARK WITH LAKE HURON FAINTLY IN THE BACKGROUND

WORKING ON RESTORING BAYFIELD’S POWER

Caron & Chris a few days ago had invited us down to have a look at the house they had bought so we slipped on over there shortly after noon. Aside from a small pine branch down in their driveway they didn't incur any damage anywhere. This was their first full day in their house & there they were with no power or water. Luckily they had their Allegro Motorhome in the driveway so they never missed a beat but what a welcome to our Park eh. And what a great house they have themselves. A quality build & a sweet deal for sure. 

DON’T KNOW WHAT WAS GOING ON DOWN THERE IN THE BAYFIELD RIVER BUT KELLY SPOTTED THESE FOLKS & TOOK THESE PICS FROM THE PASSENGER WINDOW AS WE CROSSED THE BRIDGE

I THINK THEY LOOK KINDA STRANDED OR SOMETHING

I walked over to our good friends Gail & Richard's place kitty-corner from us about mid afternoon to see how they were doing & they were sitting in their van staying warm. Invited them over to our warm toasty Motorhome & we all sat around for a couple hours having ourselves a big chin wag. Richard is my long time friend & country roads coffee buddy:)) 

OUR VIEW OUT ONE OF THE RIG’S TWO LIVING ROOM WINDOWS
About 5 o'clock we thought about supper but that meant carrying a bunch of stuff out of our cold house so a quick decision was made & off we went to McDonald's in Goderich. Rather than going through the drive-thru Kelly went in & a short time later when coming back out she bumped right into Richard & Gail heading through the drive-thru. Laughs all way round:)) 

HEADING FOR GODERICH ON PORTER HILL LINE

HAD A SETTING WRONG IN THIS PARTICULAR CAMERA & THAT’S WHY THESE PICS HAVE A BLUE TINGE TO THEM

SAW LOTS OF CREWS WORKING ON POWER LINES
We set a lamp in our living room window where we could see it from the rig & left the 'on' switch on. Just about when we were figuring on spending the night in our Motorhome the lamp in our living room suddenly flickered to life. It was exactly 8 p.m. Yaaaaay the powers back on.....but not so fast Bub, it's gonna take awhile for that cold, cold, house to get all warmed up again. Aw the heck with it & in we went, wrapped ourselves in Eskimo blankets, cranked the thermostat, fired up a couple small ceramic heaters, & built ourselves a roaring great campfire in the middle of our living room floor:)))))))))))))))))

THAT’S A LIMB FROM OUR FRONT YARD SUNBURST LOCUST TREE LYING ON OUR SUNROOM ROOF

For anyone interested I have included a Live Writer album of additional Sunday photos i couldn’t fit into the blog.

Aftermath Of An Overnight Mid October Snow Deluge VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

To use the 'Slide Show' option open the album then double click the first photo.  Screen appears with photo enlarged against a black background.  Move your mouse around a bit & look to the top left corner to where it says ‘Play slide show’.  Click on that & away you go:))

Ok, so that brings me up to today & I’ll try to keep today’s activities to 2 short paragraphs.  Happy to see sunshine this morning & feel warmer temps.  Snow has pretty well all melted.  More yard clean-up this morning & I have several piles of debris I may load up into my utility trailer Tuesday.  Caron & Chris headed for the Halton Hills west of Toronto today with a U-Haul to get their stuff out of storage & bring back to their house here in the Park.  We volunteered to doggy-sit Dixie so it was nice to have an extra set of paws around the house all day.  Pheebe & the Dixie Doodle Dog get along just fine & Dixie is so good we hardly know she’s here. 

OUR BASSWOOD TREE’S NICE UMBRELLA SHAPED CANOPY NOW LIES BROKEN ON THE GROUND

A surprise email from an old AA friend today who I probably have not seen for about 30 years.  It was to congratulate me about something that took place many years ago.  Reg F. in his email says, Congratulations on 36 years my old friend. Hope this note finds you doing great. Have a fabulous day.  Your Brother in AA Reg.”  Each year on this day I always include a link about the very first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting I ever attended. It was a meeting that literally changed my life overnight.  I wrote this post back in October of 2009……………….A SPECIAL DAY IN MY LIFE.  Thanks Reg:))
 

SNOW CAN BE SEEN SLIDING OFF PINE BOWS TO THE LEFT
GROANER'S CORNER:))  A couple in their nineties are both having some short term memory loss.  While in for a check-up, the physician says that physically they’re okay, but since they’re having trouble remembering things, they might want to start writing things down. Later that evening they’re sitting and reading, when the husband gets up. “Would you like anything from the kitchen?” he asks. “Some vanilla ice cream,” his wife replies. “Okay.” “Shouldn’t you write it down so you don’t forget it?” she asks. “Don’t worry, I won’t forget.” “Well,” she says. “A few raspberries on top would be great. You want to write that down?” “I’ve got it, honey. A bowl of vanilla ice cream with raspberries on top.” “And chocolate sauce, too. Maybe you’ll forget that. Want me to write it down for you?” A little miffed, he replies, “I’ve got it! Ice cream, raspberries and chocolate sauce. I don’t need it written down, for gosh sakes!”He waddles out to the the kitchen. A half hour later, he comes back with a plate of ham and scrambled eggs, and gives it to his wife. She stares at the plate a few seconds, then says, “You forgot my toast.”