Timber Ho!

My corner of the world was ravaged last night by a hellacious thunderstorm. According to the news reports this morning, we had winds of up to 85 mph starting at about 4am or so. The thunder and lightning woke me up, as did the wind hitting my bedroom window hard enough to knock it in. (I have those windows that tip in for easy cleaning, and it hadn't been secured well enough when we shut up the house to turn on the AC.) I got up to check the rest of the windows. The rain was so intense I couldn't even see my backyard. I crawled back into bed and eventually drifted back to sleep.

I woke up this mornin about 8:30 psyched to spend the day getting ready for my Phishing trip this weekend. I had a laundry list of things to do -- air out my tent, pack, go get cash, go stock up on water, etc. As I was traveling down our hallway, I happened to glance out the window in my sister's room and gasped aloud, running into the living room to get a better look at my front yard. The tree that once stood in the front yard was sprawled across the lawn and across our driveway. (Thank GOD my sis pulled the car into the garage last night about 10:00 or else it would have been under the tree!) I went outside to see if I could just lift and move the tree myself (yeah, I know) and then went inside and started placing some calls to find a chainsaw -- and to see if I could find someone who could come take my sis to work since our car was trapped in the garage.

Luckily, a friend of mine had this amazing tool called the Alligator which basically chomped through the branches. While he chomped, I hauled the branches to the curb. We were able to get the driveway cleared off before it started to rain again. The rest, we'll deal with when I get home from Phish.

Needless to say, I have an evening of scrambling to get packed and organized for the weekend. Sigh!