Near misses

Last week we had an unexpected snowfall. Snow was forecast for "higher elevations", which doesn't usually mean us, and when I left for work it was damp but not cold. Then I get a call saying "It's snowing here, and the highway is getting dicey." So I headed home while I still could and planned on working the rest of the day from there.

When I got home, we were without power. Power was out the whole day. We spent the day in semi-darkness, watching snow fall, and listening to the crack and crash of falling branches around our neighborhood.

But it could have been a lot worse, with several near misses:

The roads were getting dicey. The highway was slow but at least no accidents. I only just made it up the hill at the end of our road, and only thanks to a couple of patches of bare road where trees overhang, that gave me traction to get up speed for the next stretch.

We have a wood stove for warmth, so the house was livable. And we could boil kettles for drinks, and we cooked a simple supper on it just before the power came back that evening.

We have overhead lines for power and cable running from the road to the house. Half of the cherry tree at the front of the property split away and nearly took out the lines. Just the ends of some branches ended up resting on them, which I was able to reach with long loppers and cut them away.

At the side of the house, a couple of massive branches fell from the arbutus at the edge of the property. One fell onto a gravel path a few feet from the back of the garage. The other fell onto the carport roof. As I was clearing them away yesterday it was obvious how lucky we were that they did no damage. We have a deck above the garage and fencing for privacy along the edge of the carport where it butts up to the deck. Either of those branches could easily have wrecked the fence or the deck railings.

Yes, we had a lot to be thankful for that day.