Kitchen Detour: June 29th Storm

This past weekend, I anticipated shuffling some stuff around in the garage so I could get my trailer out (it conveniently folds up for storage) to run to Menards to pickup some drywall, since they were having a 10% off sale.

I did get my trailer out alright, but it wasn't for drywall.

About 5pm on Friday, June 29th, a huge storm rolled into Central Ohio, with gusts measured at 80-85mph.  Right up until around 5pm, we had a 45' tall pine tree in our front yard.  Shortly after 5pm, we had a 45' long pine tree in our front yard.  See what I did there?

The first video below is when I was at work, right at 5pm.  The storm was so intense I sat in the parking lot for 10 minutes waiting for it to die down.  Second video is me trying to get home, and finding the road blocked by someone else's tree.  Third and final video is me taking another route to to get home, and seeing our fallen tree for the first time.  Sarah had called me to warn me, so that's why I don't sound surprised.

The landscaping blocks are where the roots tossed them

Somewhere under there, is a tiny, sad little birch tree.

Tree!

Sarah had just arrived home from work when the storm started, and she was watching out the front window when the tree slowly just started to go over.  As sort of a back story, it has been a particularly hot and dry May and June.  It was quite dry all around the roots, and our dried out clay soil just couldn't hold on.  It ripped roots up a good 8-10 feet from the base of the tree.  God was really watching out for us, because it fell to the south/south east.  If it had fallen to the west, it would have hit the neighbors house.  To the southwest, it would have hit their car.  To the north, it would have hit our fence, the northeast, would have hit Sarah's car. When it fell, it even avoided blocking the street.  It did manage to fall on the birch tree the city planted a year or two ago, but after cutting the pine tree up, it seems to have popped back up, and will hopefully live.  We were never terribly fond of the pine tree, and were always concerned during storms.  We didn't want it, but we were also too cheap to cut it down.  So God intervened and brought it down for us.  :)

This being Ohio, and AEP being...  AEP, we were out of power.  This is the 3rd extended (multi-day) power outage we've had since we bought the house 5 years ago.  I think the previous longest was 6 or 7 days.  So far, it has been 3 days, and they're estimating it will be another 5-6 days.  We got power back Monday, July 2nd, around 8pm.  I'm not complaining about the length of time it takes to get power back up, as I know they are working very hard to get power restored for everyone.  Considering on average we're without power for several days at a time every 2 years, I'm just wishing they would be a little more pro-active in keeping trees away from power lines.


Thankfully, my friend Phil, who had loaned us the generator a few weeks ago, hadn't yet picked it up, and didn't lose power at his house.  He came over Friday night with a chainsaw, and we, along with my neighbor Jed, proceeded to cut and pile the branches in the front yard.  Once we had just a trunk, we cut started cutting that up into semi-manageable pieces as well.  By 10pm Friday night, we had a large stack of branches and only about 4-6' of the stump sticking out of the ground.  

Not a tiny tree.  Photo credit: Jed

The pile of branches as they lay Saturday morning.

Saturday morning, Sarah helped me get the garage cleared out and the trailer down, and we started loading it up to take it to Kurtz Bros., our local yard waste drop off location. Traffic was terrible.  Traffic signals out everywhere, and around 20% of the people in Columbus apparently don't understand the whole "treat it as a four way stop" thing.  Lots of fender benders, lots of inconsiderate drivers.  Kurtz Bros. closes at 3pm on Saturday, but I figured they'd stay open late, considering the volume of traffic.  Nope!  3pm and they were gone.  We got 4 loads dumped, and a 5th load on the trailer.

What was left after Saturday's work. 

Sunday after church, (a big thanks to Ross for covering for me on slides for 2nd service) we dumped the already-loaded 5th load, and took a 6th and 7th load.  Kurtz Bros. was supposed to be open from 10am to 4pm on Sunday, but it looks like nobody was there, and it was just a free-for-all of dumped branches and stumps.  I wasn't going to drop off there, but called Ohio Mulch, another yard waste drop off location, to see if they were open, and they said they were now charging $12 a load (it's supposed to be free, since they turn it into mulch and sell it).  So, I joined the fracas and dumped the yard waste with everyone else.  I'm thinking whoever opened up Kurtz Bros. Monday wasn't too pleased when they came in.

So, 7 loads.  My first trip, they weighed the load and it was 360 pounds.  That was branches only, and a small load, since I didn't want to overload my 5x8 trailer.  The power went out at Kurtz Bros. after my first load, so I couldn't keep track of the total weight.  The 2nd-7th loads had trunk pieces and more branches, and were probably 500-600 pounds each, so I'm guessing the tree weighed close to 2 tons.

The most fun part of all?  It was in the mid 90s all weekend, and our 5-day forecast looks to be 97, 97, 97, 99, 95.  We've been sleeping in the basement, since it stays nice and cool down there.  I'm enjoying getting to use my oil lantern, but sleeping on couch cushions on the floor has gotten old, very quickly.

So to recap the weekend:  No power, no AC.  Our kitchen is in our living room, and our bedroom is in our basement, along with our future kitchen, and remnants of the old kitchen.  Never did get the drywall, and Menards sale ended yesterday.  Pooh.

The stump may just wait until after the kitchen is done.