Safe and sound

I spent Friday driving through thunderstorms, and then drove home today to discover that the house hasn't had power since Friday noon-- and the power company is warning that we may not get power back until as late as Wednesday. So I'll only be around as long as my laptop battery lasts for a while (but I can recharge it in the car or at work). Everyone is safe and sound, though.

The half-a-tree is now a not-a-tree, though; it fell this morning. Pics soon.

Edit: Talk about timing... the power came on just after I clicked "post." Hopefully it will stay on; we did have power for about 10 minutes earlier today.

Tree pics

When we moved here, there was a wonderful gigantic black willow tree in the backyard. It had two trunks, and the more nearly vertical trunk fell several years ago during a storm. The remaining trunk leaned across our back yard at a sharp angle; it was so unbalanced that the roots were beginning to pull out of the ground. We knew it would fall soon, so I snapped a picture during the beautiful sunrise on New Year's Day.

We've had wave after wave of severe thunderstorms this weekend, and they were finally too much. To our surprise, the tree wasn't uprooted; it snapped off about 6 feet above the ground. I'm glad it missed my birdfeeders and swing!

pics here