How to know when your luck's running good . . .
This thing landed between the house and the tool shed, square on the driveway. (You can't really see the driveway or the pad outside the garage for all the downed branches and leaves). At least 3/4 ton of waterlogged pine (trust me, I cut it up and moved it). Missed us clean, and landed where it did no damage, except for blocking the driveway until it was moved. Almost blocked the doors to the shed (note to self -- next time, bring the chain saw in from the shed before the storm hits.) Had it landed twenty-five feet to the west, the garage (and the Fiero!) might well have been toast. Anywhere else would have damaged the house, the shed, or other trees.
Four or five trees, and numerous branches, down elsewhere on the property. Lost two beautiful, old oaks -- the smoker will not be hurting for fuel for years, but I'd rather get my fuel wood another way. Clean-up's going to take a while. There's a lot of work to do, including finding a way to take out a large pine tree that pulled its root ball and would have hit our bedroom, but is caught up on other trees. Power was out until tonight, but is at least back on, for now.
Life could be better, but it could be a lot worse. Power was out, and we did a lot of the initial clean-up in hot, extremely humid conditions (chain-saw operating time was limited by how long it took the safety glasses to fog up, which wasn't long). But water pressure stayed up, so we could at least clean up afterward, and an early-season cool front finally moderated temperatures and cut the humidity, making the last couple of days much more bearable.
We weren't unscathed, but it could have been much worse. Others got tagged worse than we did, so if there's something I can do to help any PFFr's in the area, please give a yell. I cannot ford high water (DUH!) but I'll do what I can.
