Windy Weather

I love the wind. On windy afternoons, the eagles catch the currents and drift over the valley, and I sit and watch in wonder. In January, the wind knocked over a huge evergreen widening our view of the valley. I was all for the wind; I love its power and strength.

The last few days as I lay in bed during the wee hours and listened to the wind and rain pummel our house, I’ve been less of a fan. Besides disturbing my sleep, the wind has been causing troubles around here. Baby Girl called from the top of the driveway Wednesday on her way to school. The MR was still home and was told in no uncertain terms to bring the chainsaw. Our chainsaw has a mind of its own and only works when it feels like it, so the MR had his hands full. Before he headed off to work, he warned my of our own personal driving hazard.

Driveway debris

It’s hard to capture the scope of how big this tree really is. Here’s where it came from.

Downed Tree

You can see the gash where it broke away from the stand of trees. I’m just glad the MR was home, otherwise BG and I would have had a day of rest trapped here.

Now, before he headed off, the MR did point out some problems in the back yard. The tunnel cloches had blown away, and when I let the dogs out I watched them run wildly through the orchard and realized the fence was down. So that afternoon, I walked the driveway to remove small branches and other debris. Then armed with zip ties and work gloves, I turned my attention to our other problems.

The fence around the orchard next to the woods was completely undone.

Fence is lost

I guess I should be thankful we have lots of brambles and trees to keep it from truly blowing away. It just made for a bit of challenge untangling the fencing and getting it back where it was supposed to be.

Caught in the trees

It was definitely more fun putting up the fence the first time with Sweet Miss’ help. Lest you’re worried that I had to do the work all by myself, the dogs were kind enough to keep me company.

Finished Line

I’d like to say Bogart is inspecting my work and giving it his stamp of approval, but we all know he just wants to play ball.

After taking care of the orchard, I moved on to the garden and my tunnel cloches.

Chaos

The MR added some fertilizer a while ago and mentioned that everything is dead, but you never can tell. Plants will surprise you and come back, so I decided to put it to rights. This was a fairly simple job. Most of the clothes pins and earth staples were just strewn about. I did put the stone vegetable makers on the outside of the insulating fabric to help keep it down.

Tunnel Cloches

Feeling pleased with all my work and ready for a rest, I headed up the slope to get a glass of water and put my feet up for a bit. That’s when I happened to notice this.

Blowing in the Wind 2

The fence on the opposite side of the orchard was blowing in the wind. Now that’s not going to keep any critters out. So I put off relaxing and got busy with the zip ties.

All of the improvements have lasted through another night of wind and rain, bu it looks like this will be an ongoing project.

Surviving the winter weather?

7 thoughts on “Windy Weather

  1. Oh my goodness, such is the life of living in the wild! You did a good job of ‘fixing up’ the havoc created by Mother Nature, and slept like a log (oh forgive my pun) that night. Nope, our winter looks like it is gone, as we have 76 degree, and sun scheduled for this week and next.

  2. Barely surviving winter here, although this week is very nice. In two days, we melted almost 12 inches of snow from the week before. It was VERY cold. Didn’t hate the snow days, but was ready to return to work.

  3. Pingback: February Unplugged | bigwhitehouseonthehill

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