windy city

We got the side of Ike blowing through our part of the Commonwealth this morning. If this is a tropical depression...and I'm not even sure it ranked as that...then spare me a hurricane. There's a reason I live in the middle of the country.

We watched as wind whipped our three large trees in our front yard and sent a flurry of leaves, twigs, branches and limbs onto our yard for several hours this morning. As we drove into town we had to turn around and find different routes because of downed limbs and trees blocking roads. We lost some siding on the south end of our house,the power was off in most of the area, and the bad news is we didn't get any rain at all out of this..which is the thing we DO need.

This afternoon we spent an hour with all four of us manning rakes, wheelbarrows, and our hands to clean up the mess. We made a good start on it, but we still have a huge limb stuck in a sycamore tree right in the middle of our yard. The limb is forked over the limb below it, and dangles all the way to the ground. The Reenactor is trying to think of ways to get it out without having to hire pros.

Meanwhile, we have a huge pile of debris in our garden that in a couple of weeks will make a heckuva bonfire.

This certainly doesn't rank up there with the devastation Ike wrought further south; but if our yard represents one teeny percent of the cleanup people are having to do around Houston all I can say is I feel for them.