A Tree Fell on My House

 

Have you ever heard of a derecho? I'm positive I had at some point, maybe during a grade school science class, but I couldn't have told you what it was.

I can now!

Here's a radar image of the straight-line wind that came through my yard in late June:

The official report is that this derecho had top wind speeds of over 100 mph in some places. I don't know the top wind speed in my yard, since it destroyed the anemometer on my roof (it's this one, and it's so good!) AND knocked the power out for over two days, but I can say that visually, Matt and I were outside puttering in my garden when I saw a line of dark clouds appear on the western horizon. 

I was all, "Shoot, a storm is coming," and decided I had time to just finish putting the last few shovels of compost in my raised bed before heading in.

I swear it was just seconds later that the sky was black, the wind was INSANE, and I was running into the house. Matt had for some reason decided to run around the house and go in a different door, because the man, unlike a derecho, clearly cannot take a straight line if his life depended on it, so he was still outside when my second-favorite elm tree hit the house so hard that it shook. 

A second later, Matt wandered in the back door and was all, "It's so windy out!" 

Like, yeah, DO YOU THINK? 

Ugh, my beautiful backyard elm tree! The one with the kids' tree house in it! AND it took out our Covid lockdown trampoline on the way down!

I mean, I know my kids are grown/nearly grown, but did it really have to destroy so many of their outdoor playthings? This used to be a yard that kids played in constantly, and now not only are those children too grown-up to play there, but the only evidence that kids ever once did play there is the back deck slide.

But at least for a while, the fallen tree, itself, did make a good piece of outdoor climbing equipment!

Actually, it was also a great setting for some outdoor family portraits. If you like taking family photos, I highly recommend finding an elevated spot like this, where you can take interesting photos from below of your family silhouetted by the sky.

Look at that identical body language, lol. Can you tell that these two are related?

We climbed around and posed dangerously in a short break between near-constant storms for the next two days, so constant that the tree removal people also had to keep taking breaks to go sit in their trucks while storms blew over. They'd cut and haul some tree branches--

--it would start to rain and they'd ignore it, it would start to pour and they'd ignore it, lightning would strike so they'd go sit in their trucks, then it would calm down so they'd drag all their stuff back out and work for another thirty minutes while racing the next storm:

Goodbye, DIY Tree House! It's probably for the best that they removed you before the insurance adjustor arrived!

This is what the outside of our house has looked like, then, for the past two months:

I don't know where the chickens were during the derecho, but they were fine!

I don't know if we accidentally picked a shitty construction company, or if they all move this slowly, but I *think* they might finally start work next week? They've got to rebuild some of the framing on that part of the house, and roof it, of course, and then they've got to tear out and rebuild the inside walls and floors and ceilings because of all the water damage. Those ceilings, in particular, now look like this:

Here's a photo of me taking a photo of the ceiling, because for some reason my phone is always in selfie mode?

More selfie mode!

This is the really bad one, and is probably why I've had a low-grade cold for the past several weeks despite having an air purifier running continuously:

Also, for those of you who've been playing along at home for a while, this is in my bedroom closet. You know, part of the space that WE ALREADY HAD COMPLETELY REDONE IN 2022?!?

Yeah, that space. Two new sets of flooring in two years; how fun is that?