When Oliver was a baby there was a storm here in Our Little Town.
We get storms all the time, but this one stood out. I was working at the library at the time and I remember looking out of the big plate glass windows and thinking, “That is not a healthy color for the sky,” and then it turned black and the winds kicked up. You could see the inch-thick plate glass bowing in and out from the force of the wind, which makes it just that much more bizarre that I had to devote my time to going around to the various library patrons and telling them to move away from the windows before they got shredded and got blood on our nice clean books, or words to that effect.
Kim was home with Oliver, who was maybe six months old at the time. She remembers looking at the sky, grabbing Oliver and running down to the basement as the rain came in horizontally through the windows and hit the walls on the other side of the rooms.
There was no official tornado that day, but there were straight line winds that substituted pretty evenly.
The library lost power and I remember walking around with another employee looking through the parking lot to see what the damages were from that side of things – there were toppled signs and trees, but otherwise things were okay. We never lost power at home, though the power line did come down in our front lawn still live and we had to dance around it for a day or two until the utility guys could get to us. Getting home was a trick since so many trees had come down that it was difficult to find an open street. The neighborhood just west of us was completely blocked off for days.
In the wake of this, the Shade Tree Alliance in our area offered free trees to anyone who wanted one planted in their terrace so we took them up on it and ended up with a European hornbeam tree that we could see from our front door. It’s a slow-growing hardwood, but a pretty tree for all that.
We refer to it as Oliver’s Tree.
It’s had a couple of decades to grow since then and it was doing pretty well. It’s a lovely thing when the ice storms come by, for example.
We get storms all the time, but this one stood out. I was working at the library at the time and I remember looking out of the big plate glass windows and thinking, “That is not a healthy color for the sky,” and then it turned black and the winds kicked up. You could see the inch-thick plate glass bowing in and out from the force of the wind, which makes it just that much more bizarre that I had to devote my time to going around to the various library patrons and telling them to move away from the windows before they got shredded and got blood on our nice clean books, or words to that effect.
Kim was home with Oliver, who was maybe six months old at the time. She remembers looking at the sky, grabbing Oliver and running down to the basement as the rain came in horizontally through the windows and hit the walls on the other side of the rooms.
There was no official tornado that day, but there were straight line winds that substituted pretty evenly.
The library lost power and I remember walking around with another employee looking through the parking lot to see what the damages were from that side of things – there were toppled signs and trees, but otherwise things were okay. We never lost power at home, though the power line did come down in our front lawn still live and we had to dance around it for a day or two until the utility guys could get to us. Getting home was a trick since so many trees had come down that it was difficult to find an open street. The neighborhood just west of us was completely blocked off for days.
In the wake of this, the Shade Tree Alliance in our area offered free trees to anyone who wanted one planted in their terrace so we took them up on it and ended up with a European hornbeam tree that we could see from our front door. It’s a slow-growing hardwood, but a pretty tree for all that.
We refer to it as Oliver’s Tree.
It’s had a couple of decades to grow since then and it was doing pretty well. It’s a lovely thing when the ice storms come by, for example.
Last night we got another storm. Not the one we were expecting earlier that evening – that missed us pretty much entirely – but another one that hit at 2:20am this morning. Go ahead, ask me how I know that. Let’s just say that the first thing I looked at was the clock and the second thing I looked at was the view from my bedroom window and of the two the former was more detailed. I couldn’t even see my neighbor’s house for the rain and the wind.
Up until this spring there was a big maple tree across the street from us, but three straight days of tropical-storm-strength winds managed to split it in two and the neighbors had to take it down. We lost our evening shade, and it turns out we also lost our windblock – I suspect that’s why Oliver’s Tree took such heavy damage from last night’s storm.
I got the big limb facing the sidewalk down, which took some time as a) I do not own a chain saw and b) the European hornbeam grows quite the tangle of branches and getting anything pulled down through that web is a trick. I’m hoping that is the end of it.
But the big limb facing the street also split and I’m not really convinced it will survive. I’ll leave it there until the leaves go brown, just to be sure, since I don’t want to take more down than I have to.
Kim says that this tree is often used for topiaries so it’s a species that can handle being pruned pretty ruthlessly. I’m hoping this means it will survive. I’ve been trying to train it to grow up and to the sides rather than over the street or sidewalk, so we’ll see.
Go little tree, go.
But the big limb facing the street also split and I’m not really convinced it will survive. I’ll leave it there until the leaves go brown, just to be sure, since I don’t want to take more down than I have to.
Kim says that this tree is often used for topiaries so it’s a species that can handle being pruned pretty ruthlessly. I’m hoping this means it will survive. I’ve been trying to train it to grow up and to the sides rather than over the street or sidewalk, so we’ll see.
Go little tree, go.
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