A few nights ago there were very high winds here overnight and through the next day. There were gusts up to 100 mph in our valley and not quite so high here at our house. The noise was intense, especially seeming so while it was dark. Our trees all stayed upright with just a few branches down but nearby there were hundreds of big and small trees cracked, uprooted and knocked over.

We saw trees leaning at strange angles everywhere and driving was pretty exciting the next day, the trees blocking entire streets and making wide roads into one lane roads.

We visited our river trail where we saw many trees down and Gavin noticed the water level was extremely high. We think it’s because of all the trees and material in the water suddenly. We hauled some big branches off the trail on our way and cleaned up some trash too on our walk.

The following day we went up the hill from our house about a half mile and visited some uprooted trees on the Capital grounds. It truly is amazing to see how the wind can uproot a hundred or more foot high tree. I wondered why these ones came down and not others close by and if the trees root systems or health affected their chances at all.

 

We played a bit with perspective.

Leading up to the storm the smoke from wildfires states away was making the air terrible here and a strange orange color so I was glad to see blue sky after the wind. I’m grateful our yard and house fared so well and I’m amazed by the forces of nature! It will be fun to go to some of our usual walking areas and see how they have changed.