Beginning the New Year

Category: gardening | Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2009 6:13 pm

The year of 2009 has..literally..been "blown in" by the Wyoming winds! Christmas Eve Day saw gusts upwards of 75 MPH, with a steady 45 MPH in between, that caused blowing snow and all kinds of good things floating in the air. Found a section of flexible drain pipe laying in front drive that drifted in from somewhere; plastic bags were decorating the bushes and trees; empty garbage cans were rolling around before their owners could get to them, and the tube bird feeders were flopping in ALL directions!
That night, about 9 p.m., was watching a program called "Ghost Hunters" when something hit the front window..right in back of my chair!..with a THUD, followed by "thloop! Thloop! Thloop!" that had me outta that chair in nothing flat! I thought I'd been HAD and that the "spooks" were surely knocking on my door! Looked out just in time for the SECOND "attack" that got me back paddlin' faster than I realized I could MOVE! The culprit was an Eurasion collared turtle dove that I went out and rescued with shaking hands (and whole shaking body!), took out into middle of yard an released..minus a few feathers. There's been a number of them present lately, roost in the cedar tree by front door, and all I can figure is it kinnda lost its grip on a branch and the WIND did the rest, causing a number of NEW gray hairs in the process! That was Christmas.
New Years Eve day, winds were at it AGAIN, but loaded up my little Australian Shepard and went to do some much needed shopping. Went by a not-yet-completed duplex being built whose newly shingled roof didn't look "just right": at LEAST 24 shingles had been loosened and were standing UPRIGHT due to the winds: thought "that contractor isn't going to be a very happy camper" when he returns to work! From there, it was dodging bags of garbage blown out of tipped over cans, getting the truck "rocked" at stop lights til I FINALLY made the store! Got out of pickup, then went PARI-SAILING across parking lot to front door of the place in RECORD TIME, looked like an old witch that just had a very bad ride around the neighborhood on her broom! Got what I needed, including a 50 pound bag of birdseed, and headed back to the truck, going INTO the wind this time! Cart, groceries, bird seed and I went east, west, a bit south then due north before getting back heading east again to..eventually..make it. Unloaded the items into truck bed (while trying to keep cart, with my foot, from taking off to parts unknown), just closed the tailgate and shell topper when a GUST hit me so HARD I was 10 feet down the parking lot before I knew it! Some nice gentleman, going by, laughingly offered to take the cart back..I didn't ARGUE one bit, said "thank you, SIR!", but think the words blew into the next town.
Winds continued into New Years Day, and here She is, another howler this one. We DO get the WINDS, yes!, but my heart goes out to those on the East Coast who've had devastating ice storms, snow and unusual winds for there. Our trees are use to the abuse, grew up with it and have adapted to their surroundings, not so those stately eastern rigid oaks, etc. who've suffered a lot of damage due to the elements, wind just isn't in their vocabulary!
I think I've "winded" enough...

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Frank wrote on Fri Jan 02, 2009 8:28 pm:

We had vitually zero wind over Xmas W'n's. Perhaps it lost its way and ended up on your doorstep?

Droopy wrote on Sat Jan 03, 2009 6:59 am:

Wind can be horrible! Here on the coast of Norway we often get strong winds. Fortunately I haven't been whisked away by them yet. I can't help thinking about the poor dove - what a shock it must have had. *lol*

gardengater wrote on Sat Jan 03, 2009 6:24 pm:

You had quite an adventure. glad all survived and there were no real ghosts. Here on the coast, we can experience some high winds too, but so far, no errant birds.