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A Window On My World

This is not a daily blog.
Posts will be published on occasion and irregularly as I am able.
Some of these posts are from my web site The Garden At Crocker Croft.
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Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Long Paws Pause

Hurricane Ike brought us no rain. Only a few large scattered drops. We are in drought. The only thing this garden received from Ike was a wind storm with gusts of 60 miles an hour and 30 to 40 miles an hour sustained winds all day Sunday. The plants, large and small, felt its desiccating effects. That much wind and no rain in existing mild drought conditions is not a good thing.

The trees danced wildly and showed their limber resistance. We lost one tree and parts of others. There is much cleanup that needs to be done. The tree we lost is the largest and oldest of the redbud trees. I have a call in to the tree service company and a long to-do list waiting for them.

I may not get any writing done for a few days while the work is busy here. During the long pause, perhaps you would be interested in seeing other paws. So, I will leave you with a link to one section of my web site, The Garden At Crocker Croft.

That section is Critter Crossings. You might enjoy browsing around there, but be careful... Fizz lives in the basement (footer), and he bites!




13 comments:

Kerri said...

Sorry you didn't get any rain from Ike, Barbee. How sad to lose your biggest redbud. Don't overdo with all the cleaning up!
We had strong winds too which broke a couple of large branches in our biggest Maple tree.
Perfect late summer gardening weather today though :)
I'm going to check out Fizz now....hope I don't get bitten!

Anonymous said...

Thank you for your warm words on my blog! Here in sweden, it is cold and rainy. The summer was quickly end this year, otherwise we tend to be nice and warm autumn. I wish I could share with me a little rain to you:). Too bad that your tree has been damaged in the storm. Have a good and a real nice garden weekend! From Camilla in Orebro, Sweden

Barbee' said...

Kerri (New York, U.S.A.): Thank you for visiting. Yes, this is nice autumn weather. Hope you fed Fizz for me; he has been neglected lately.

Camilla (Sweden): Cold and rainy already?! Oh, me. Thank you for your thoughts on sharing; I could use some of both the cold and the rainy right now. I felt fortunate that we had as little damage as we did from the strong winds. Thank you for visiting and leaving a comment.

Anonymous said...

oh Barbee, so sorry to hear about all the wind damage. Ike really had far reaching effects, didn't he? What a monster of a storm but the shame of it all was no moisture for you. I hope you get some soon. Good luck getting your limbs and tree cleaned up.

Barbee' said...

Kathleen (Colorado, U.S.A.): Ironic isn't it that everyone else was flooding, but when we looked at the TV weather channel, there was a large high pressure section right over us that was pushing the rain back onto the areas that were already saturated, then Ike brought them more rain. Quite discouraging all around. Good to hear from you, Kathleen. My posts are not showing up in the Blotanical Picks lists. Maybe next week things will be straightened out over there.

Meadowview Thymes said...

Thank you Barbee for the link.
I love bunnies, but oh the "bunnies" on that site. I have never seen a rabbit that big!

Barbee' said...

Meadowview Thymes (Texas, U.S.A.): I know! Aren't they whoppers! Almost scary.

Anonymous said...

Mercy, Barbee'! I am SO sorry. Redbuds are magical, and it's a sad day indeed to lose one. We got quite a torrential rain to relieve our long (nd now continuing) drought, along with the high winds that brought down half a honey locust. Fortunately, we have a saw and a fire pit. Sigh... Checked out your cute critters with great pleasure! We have a resident Cooper's hawk here, and watch her antics with enthusiasm, so I specially loved the Cooper's hawk enjoying the birdbath!

Barbee' said...

ourfriendben (Pennsylvania, U.S.A.): Sorry to hear about your Honey Locust. Hope it didn't damage anything in its fall. I wasn't surprised by this redbud tree falling; it has some rotten parts in the trunk and many dead little branches. There is one slim section that can be saved. It arches over the neighbors shrubs along his fence row. I will leave it for them to enjoy. We have other redbud trees scattered about our place. Regarding the photo of the hawk: I wish it were not so dark. The hawk is standing beneath a shower spray. I may see if I can redo it in Photo Shop and make it lighter, then re-load it.

John said...

I'm from Long Island, New York. the last hurricane we had was Gloria in 1985. We had no power for a week. Sorry about the winds...Its always sad when a beloved plant dies...

Barbee' said...

John (New York, U.S.A.): Thanks, John. I hope you don't have another one for a long, long time, if ever again. I was without power for 5 days after an ice storm a few years ago, and that was quite long enough. A week would have been worse!

Sunita Mohan said...

Ike made news and featured in all our newspapers here in India too. I did wonder whether everyone of my blogging friends were safe.
A pity about your redbud tree but I'm so glad you're safe and didnt suffer otherwise.

Barbee' said...

Sunita (India): Thank you, Sunita. I am barely keeping up with comments, but will get back to writing when I can. Yes, the tree loss is unfortunate, but there are other (smaller) redbud trees here. I have to have help with the clean up which is underway.

During the floods from Ike, I thought of India and other countries where there has been flooding. It seems to be a world wide problem. I haven't checked the weather news in days to see about other storms brewing. I should do that now.