After The Wind
Yesterday the house creaked and groaned under the relentless onslaught of high winds gusting on occasion well beyond the 60 km per hour we were warned to expect.
The protective blankets I'd placed on some of the ornamental trees in our backyard to help them overwinter successfully were ripped off, the containing twine still intact on the trees. Who knows where the blankets themselves ended up. It will be interesting to see, come spring, whether the removal of that protection made any difference; comparing those with, to those without.
Other than that, no damage to be seen, our larger trees appear to have withstood the high winds very well. We've had our share, in the past, of wind and storm damage to prized trees; once when a winter-hare-nibbled trunk of an apple tree succumbed, heavy with pendant fruit in late summer, completely collapsing into the flower beds in front of it.
And a much-valued prune-plum tree suffered a like fate, when that trunk too keeled over, in the process shearing off one of its main, fruit-laden branches. That tree, unlike the apple tree, was salvaged, its trunk pushed upright and for a while staked in that position, as heavy and broad as the trunk was. It appears now to have re-established its root system and looks healthy enough, even with the absence of one of its two main-bearing branches.
When we ventured, soon after breakfast today, back into the ravine for our daily walk, the ambient temperature was cooler than that of yesterday and the winds gentle, under a clear blue sky. The snow, which only a short four days earlier was overwhelming in its huge deposition throughout an extremely snowy early winter, has declined unbelievably, the result of a spate of record-breaking warm days and consequent rainfall.
The creek, although still full and energetic is rippling, not roaring, as it makes its way downstream to the Ottawa River. The snow, which a mere three days earlier was still virginal white now shrunken and utterly littered with long-dead leaves finally coaxed from stubborn their hold; branches and twigs, needles of pine, hemlock, spruce and fir, and rotten, desiccated apples. Not to speak of the fact that the well-tamped trail has become an agility track.
The need to remain right on track lest one plunge through the rotten snow on either side of the tramped-and-true trail is evident by the many hollow craters of unwary feet crashing through the fragile barrier contiguous to the trail. The brightness of the sun illuminates everything; the tangle of new-fallen boughs and branches on the forest floor, the rushing hither and yon of squirrels; black, grey and red.
Some of their hastily-assembled, poorly constructed, truly sloppy nests had tumbled off their perches during the wind storm. But then too have a few beautifully woven small-bird nests been wrenched from their perches. Alas.
The protective blankets I'd placed on some of the ornamental trees in our backyard to help them overwinter successfully were ripped off, the containing twine still intact on the trees. Who knows where the blankets themselves ended up. It will be interesting to see, come spring, whether the removal of that protection made any difference; comparing those with, to those without.
Other than that, no damage to be seen, our larger trees appear to have withstood the high winds very well. We've had our share, in the past, of wind and storm damage to prized trees; once when a winter-hare-nibbled trunk of an apple tree succumbed, heavy with pendant fruit in late summer, completely collapsing into the flower beds in front of it.
And a much-valued prune-plum tree suffered a like fate, when that trunk too keeled over, in the process shearing off one of its main, fruit-laden branches. That tree, unlike the apple tree, was salvaged, its trunk pushed upright and for a while staked in that position, as heavy and broad as the trunk was. It appears now to have re-established its root system and looks healthy enough, even with the absence of one of its two main-bearing branches.
When we ventured, soon after breakfast today, back into the ravine for our daily walk, the ambient temperature was cooler than that of yesterday and the winds gentle, under a clear blue sky. The snow, which only a short four days earlier was overwhelming in its huge deposition throughout an extremely snowy early winter, has declined unbelievably, the result of a spate of record-breaking warm days and consequent rainfall.
The creek, although still full and energetic is rippling, not roaring, as it makes its way downstream to the Ottawa River. The snow, which a mere three days earlier was still virginal white now shrunken and utterly littered with long-dead leaves finally coaxed from stubborn their hold; branches and twigs, needles of pine, hemlock, spruce and fir, and rotten, desiccated apples. Not to speak of the fact that the well-tamped trail has become an agility track.
The need to remain right on track lest one plunge through the rotten snow on either side of the tramped-and-true trail is evident by the many hollow craters of unwary feet crashing through the fragile barrier contiguous to the trail. The brightness of the sun illuminates everything; the tangle of new-fallen boughs and branches on the forest floor, the rushing hither and yon of squirrels; black, grey and red.
Some of their hastily-assembled, poorly constructed, truly sloppy nests had tumbled off their perches during the wind storm. But then too have a few beautifully woven small-bird nests been wrenched from their perches. Alas.
Labels: Environment, Perambulations
posted by Pieface @ 10:19 AM
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