Windy Weather

[lydamorehouse]

 It's been stormy and windy here in Saint Paul for the past several days. We will have brief periods of sun, but then another storm will roll in.

Related to all that, probably the biggest excitement around these parts is that we had a giant branch come crashing down onto our garage roof a couple of days ago in one of these MANY wind and rain storms we've been having all week.

Mason and I went out to look at it when it came down and Mason sighed, "Well, there goes another paycheck." I was thinking the same thing, but luckily Shawn found a news article that noted that Xcel Energy will come and do limb removal from anywhere in your yard *if* the branch is a potential danger to their power lines. Luckily? This branch was precariously leaning on the line from the alley to our house. So, they came and removed the branch FOR FREE. I mean, technically, they "removed" it from the roof and the line and we still have a giant ass branch in our backyard that we have to figure out how to dispose of, but, honestly, that's something we can deal with ourselves, even if we just saw off bits of it over the next several months, you know?

 

So, that worked out. And at least the branch didn't take out the power to our house. That would have been disastrous. 

Hopefully all of you are staying safe and dry. The weather right now, outside my window, however, is insanely gorgeous!

Comments

[lcohen]

it sounds lucky to me, albeit having it happen in the first place was far from lucky. could the branch become firewood? if you wouldn't use it as such, do you have a friend who would and could chop it up? (i have several friends who have fire pits in their back yard. i have mud, in mine....)

[lydamorehouse]

We have a kind of fireplace in the backyard, one of those little chiminea things. We will absolutely cut it up and save some for firewood. We are also in very close hauling range of the St. Paul compost/brush pile, where (once we borrow Shawn's brother's truck's flatbed) we can all it all way for free. The thing that's going to take time, I think, is the actual chopping it up. I did some work today and got a bunch of the smaller branches removed. But, I only own a handsaw, and so it's going to take time to cut through it all.

[pameladean]

Ooof, glad you didn't lose power. I have spent the last several days being grateful that we had some arborists remove a "dead leader" (a secondary trunk that didn't make it, I think?) from the enormous Chinese or Siberian elm that straddles the property lines back by the alley. I don't want to take it out before we have to, because it shades the house in hot weather. But it's capable of doing a lot of damage when it goes, and it produces sticks and larger dead branches as if that were its main business.

Also a lot of scions, but that's not as much of a problem.

P.

[offcntr]

We have a program out here called the Toolbox Project where, for a small membership fee, you can borrow various tools. Looks like the Minnesota Tool Library is a thing there...

And they have chainsaws.