a microburst with a macro effect...

it would have been better to get more rain, but the wind was exciting! we have had a fairly dry year, with a few big rain events that have kept the garden somewhat in the game. i am not much of a waterer, but have had to haul buckets this year just to stay viable. our hopes were up on saturday as the storm clouds gathered and a couple of showers swept through the area--as in blew in and blew out, quickly.

at one point the rain was whipping about enough i went upstairs to close the peak window in the northern gable. up on the ladder i had a great view of the field and woods so i stood and watched the wind swirling the trees every which way. the standing seam roof was 'wooble-woobling' like it does when it's blowing hard. there was some serious wind and i thought, if this isn't a microburst, maybe it's a tornado.

right as things really got going, i saw the three cows running full tilt from the top of the field down hill, just like they used to when clovis dube would bring them old bread. in fact, they were running for food, only it was a half dozen poplar trees that had toppled over, putting a mass of leaves in reach. cows like poplar leaves.

along the edge of the woods, running from the upper field, down hill, and off our land, is an old drainage ditch. it has filled in with trees over the years but a gravely bed kept the roots shallow and tangled together. the result was when a couple of the bigger poplars were caught in the gusts, it took a line of more that 40 feet down. the mystery picture on the left is a silhouette of a section of the root masses sticking up a good 10 to 15 feet into the air. the line of trunks in the picture on the right are sticking out into the field. had i been thinking, i would have gotten a shot of the cows feasting on the leaves where you can see the tops of all the trees against the backdrop of the woods.

besides taking the pictures above, pam also sent me one off facebook that showed a huge pine across the road at the bottom of talbert hill at the dam end of goose pond.

the power of wind and water is always impressive...






a funny note about the storm was that i had stopped to pick blueberries at our local u-pick spot, darling's berry farm (i taught both their kids years ago), and had asked pam if she wanted to pick saturday afternoon. that would have put us in the patch right as things got crazy windy and wet, but she was on call that weekend and having to talk quite a bit to the wise volunteer so she opted out. good thing, going sunday morning was much sunnier and not quite as windy. in nearly perfect picking conditions, we filled three buckets in about an hour!






the power of the fresh, ripe blueberry is equally impressive...and tasty too!