Mother Natures Fury

I was very apprehensive making the 60 mile drive this morning to the cabin. I watched the radar closely yesterday and knew that Carrroll County took a pretty good hit. As I turned into my driveway I was pretty shocked at the scene. My first thought was where do I start to clean up this mess.

I surveyed the area close to the cabin and saw that there was no real damage to the structure, but things were a real mess. I couldn't get across my creek due to high water and it was littered with fallen trees. I could see that I had lost at least ten mature hardwoods, mostly oaks. I hate to see the damage up on my higher ground across the creek.

I had no electricity and my freezer in the refrigerator had partially defrosted. The carpet was pretty wet, but not in a real large area. I keep a small shop vac on hand for times like this. It was useless without power, so my T-shirt sufficed as a sponge of sorts. I sopped up what I could and started some clean-up of the grounds. Limbs were everywhere. I piled up most of the large ones near my fire ring and then raked for an hour or so in the driveway. Got the driveway cleared and called it a day.

I stopped at the electric company to report my outage, as I am the only one on my transformer. The lady told me 7-10 days before I have power again. I'm sure I'll be back down over the weekend to do some more clean-up.

Limbs like the ones in my driveway are laying everywhere. In the background of this photo you can see some of the trees that hung up in others but are either uprooted or broken off at the base.

Hate to see the mess you have to deal with Dick. Like you I also hate to see good wood go to waste too.

If I didn't love hunting there as much as I do I'd probably throw in the towel and sell the place(Yeah, right!). This year has been a real pain trying to keep up. But, hey we will get it cleaned up over the next couple of weeks and all will be fine.

Hard to believe how much a piece of ground can get in to your heart. My dad has been having problems with his foot. He helped a little bit this morning and then took up residence on the porch. He kept asking me when I was going to take a break. I told him that I'd quit when I couldn't do any more. He just shook his head and said "I'm glad you and Norma own this place, no one else would work on it constantly to keep it up". I just smiled and kept on working.

The wood that is retrieveable will not go to waste, Chuck. My neighbor will cut most of it up and use for firewood to heat his house in the winter.

well looks like you have some work to do, but like they say, it could always be worse LOL
and I too hate to see a good tree come over in a storm, takes so long for a tre to get to a certian size,
fire wood or not, it still sucks
but better to use than just leave it be!
and as for keeping the place
think you would be lost without it
all the work, is good for the soul, and makes you appreciate all the good times when you just get to relax when your there!
all the more so!
if you were colser i'd be glad to help you out, too!

I too, are sorry about your mess. Everything that I can see from the house is OK, but haven't made it to the woods yet.

You are right Stan, I'd be lost without the place. We definately have more good times than bad ones.

I'll bet your creek is flowing quite well Mike. If you got wind like we did I'm sure you have a few trees down.

Yes the creek is up, and has been all summer. The wind we had only lasted a couple of minutes, and didn't seem as bad as the rest of the state got. It looked on radar that the line of the storm got bigger as it went east.

It's good the neighbor will be helping you out with the wood. Boy, didn't think the storms were that bad down that way but I guess I was wrong. Tell that Stonegod fella to get over there and help you out!! :smash:

Really hate to see this Dick, but gotta agree with Stan, you wouldnt know what to do with out it. We had about the same as Mike, the wind only lasted a few minutes with little to no damage, me and the wife went for a ride last night and was checking some fields, a lot of the corn fields to the southeast of us are flat! Hate to see this for the farmers