Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Storm Has Me Playing Pick Up Sticks

Another round of severe thunderstorms rolled through Vermont Monday evening. All these storms had missed my house this summer, until Monday.

A great gush of wind and rain slammed St. Albans, tossing down trees across streets and highways, cutting power, and making a general mess.
This dead tree fell on my property during Monday's storm
It dropped in a perfect location to avoid damage and allow
easy cleanup

When I arrived home shortly after the storm ended, I found my property here in St. Albans was pretty much unscathed. One dead tree toppled. It was one I was going to cut down anyway, and it fell in the exact spot where I was going to drop it. Perfect.

Tuesday, though, it was a game of pick of sticks on my acre of property. On closer inspection, I found twigs everywhere. I had to get rid of them, because they would have interfered with lawn mowing, and looked crummy in the garden beds.

As I picked up the sticks, dozens of them, it felt a little like fall cleanup. It seemed that summer had reached its midpoint, and the first hints of fall were there.

Yes, it was relatively warm and humid, typical July weather. Sometimes, the sky looked like summer, with billowy clouds spitting out showers. Other times, the sky had a November feel, that look you get on the first cold day, when there's been snow flurries, and the ground is hardening with frost.

A gusty wind from the northwest blew all day, too. Unusual for July. It was a warm wind, but it's almost never windy from the northwest in the summer.
I collected this pile of twigs as I cleaned up after Monday's storm.
Beer bottle is there for scale.

We have plenty of summer left. So it's not like I've put the season aside. My day lilies are still blooming nicely, everything is nice and green and will stay that way for awhile.

But Monday's storm was a ceremony. It marked the midpoint of summer in electric fashion, and sometime fairly soon, we'll have to start thinking about autumn.

I took a video of the storm as it blasted St. Albans. It's below:



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