Mother Nature must have decided that I had too much time on my hands. The town where my shop is located got hit by a microburst while the storms were rolling through at the end of the heatwave on Saturday. Only a 1/2 mile swath but there are trees everywhere, including on top of many cars. The first of them started rolling in today. I’m going to be busy for months. Plenty of cars got hit with hail too. No rest for the wicked.
I hope insurance will cover and not an excessive amount of clean-up. The thunder was louder than fireworks and on Sunday we were out and around and power was out in random places like half of New Canaan although not so much in Pound Ridge or Bedford. It probably surprised many. Sales of home generators probably spiked Monday.😃
It’s unbelievable how localized the damage was. The center of town got hit hard but a few miles north at my shop, it only rained for a bit. I’m still scarred from the last major weather event we had around here. In May of 2018 there were a few towns to the north of us that got hit with bad hail. I was still putting roofs on cars into January from that storm.
I don't know if you guys were around for the ice storm of 2011 that hit Massachusetts. It was 1/2 mile swaths that looked like a cat scratched the state. Power was out for 1 week in our area. But if you were 1/4 mile away you might have got nothing.
I live where you can watch your dog run away for three days.
We can sit on our porch and watch storms go around us. It's the strangest thing to see. You can see it coming and figure you'll get hit bad but it just stays about 5 miles North or South and we get nice weather.
When I lived on the coast, storms would come in, back up against the mountains and dump rain on us for a week.
That’s how it was around here when we got the Halloween blizzard in 2011. My house was at higher elevation so we just got two feet of snow and there was enough wind to keep it blown off the trees so no real damage. As soon as you drove down the mountain a bit where there was less wind, it was like a bomb went off. Same story, out of power for over a week.
Shawn, what you are saying reminds me of driving through the midwest where you can see this scary black line in the sky 10 miles moving like a curtain but you never actually run in to it. Here is Massachusetts we have rolling elevation so unless you are sitting on top of a peak you can't see very far like in farm country on flat ground.
Job security.
It is job security but not the way I want to stay busy. I feel bad though, a lot of people lost every tree on their property plus whatever they all landed on.
That's rough.
About 10 years ago we had a big wind storm come in on the west coast. It was really early autumn and the trees still had all their leaves.
We'd had a couple weeks of rain and the wind was pushing big, mature trees over and pulling the roots out of the ground because it was so wet.
My house was surrounded by 50 foot tall cedars and I'm very thankful that mother nature didn't chuck a tree through my house.
Hopefully none landed on the houses. Cleaning up the trees can be a financial disaster too, not to mention if you happen to lose a tree you really loved. It will only take 50 years for it to grow back.
Some did. I’m sure everyone is arguing with their homeowner’s insurance right now. One of our customers had the roof taken off of their horse barn with the horse in it. Somehow it was only injured.
It’s always a big dilemma deciding which trees to keep and which to cut. My house has a beautiful oak on one side and an absolutely massive tulip poplar on the other. Both are close to the house and will flatten it if we ever get a bad wind event but to cut them down would ruin the property. So they stay and we just keep our fingers crossed.
I hate the idea of taking down a 100 year old awesome tree. Although I'm not a big fan of Oak trees as they show no color and drop acorns all over the place. The good news Oak is usually a sturdy tree for the most part. The Tulip poplar is a fast growing tree and can get HUGE How old is it?
The Tulip Poplar is a fantastic tree that can live for centuries. The catch is that people often plant it 75 feet from the house, assuming it will never be a problem—only to discover that within 40 years it can easily exceed 100 feet in height.
One other thing about Oaks is that they have a tap root so are much less likely to get blown over after an extended wet period. The live Oaks down here can get quite spectacular, the first 100 yards of my driveway is lined with them. I have an Oak that I haven't been able to identify exactly that has a trunk that measures 21 feet in circumference at eye level. The internet dates it at somewhere between 250 and 350 years old.
My wife standing next to the trunk.
My two properties are mostly large oaks, which is fine with me because they’re sturdy and one of the few trees around here that doesn’t have disease problems. I have a 5 acre wood lot that I’m in the process of selectively cutting out all of the beech trees because the leaf disease is wiping them out. It’s a shame.
I don’t know how old this tulip poplar is but it had to have been decent sized when the house was built in the 70’s. It’s actually two sisters, each about 3.5 feet in diameter. Here it is next to the house and a 10’ wide woodshed for perspective. If it comes down, we need a new house.
That oak tree is spectacular! Have any Keebler elves living in there?😄
Wow those are beautiful trees. Do you know when the best time to plant a tree is? 50 years ago.
No elves, but it's got branches on it that would make good sized trees. This is the entrance to my drive, these are all live Oaks that were planted about 50 years ago so are still young trees. If you look through the steel gate on the right you can see a gray granite block that I call the toombstone, on it is engraved "Twelve Oaks". From here it's 1/4 mile to the house, the shop is along the way.
Love it! You know you are going to have to message me a picture of the house now, right?
I love some good tree talk. I use an app called "Picture This" which can identify any plant. It costs about 25 bucks a year but I use it at least once a month so maybe 2 bucks a shot. Worth while to me.
I've been told that, on islands in the ocean, you will occasionally find trees growing that don't belong there.
Apparently various navies would bring seedlings along on voyages and plant them when they stopped to re-supply.
Someone might need a mast one day.
On Ascension Island, a mid-1800s project led by Charles Darwin and Joseph Hooker successfully engineered an artificial cloud forest on a barren volcanic rock to capture mist for drinking water. Basically changing the climate of the island by planting trees.
I don’t doubt that navies were planting trees wherever they could. Ship masts were a hot commodity for quite some time. At one point in colonial New England, white pines were some of the most valuable trees in the world because the massive old growth pines were perfect for ship masts. Any trees over a certain diameter were marked as property of the crown. That’s why the town green in a lot of New England towns was shaped like a triangle so that a 100ft+ mast could make the turn in the center of town.
Told ya I could nerd out…
Feel free, I love learning stuff like this.
My wife is amazed (that's the word I'll use for it) at the amount of useless information I keep in my head.
Live Oaks too from what I understand.
Because of the way they grow, they supply ready-made corners without the need for extra joinery.
Isn't an oak tree slow growth? 6" to 12" a year? It would be a 100 years before they would have a tree good enough for a mast?
Ask AI and it responds:
After the Napoleonic Wars, Sweden sought to secure long-term naval timber supplies amid concerns over resource depletion. A delegation (essentially acting in an exploratory/survey capacity) was sent to identify ideal planting sites. They selected the island of Visingsö in Lake Vättern for its suitable conditions. Over the next decade or so, around 300,000 oak trees were planted there. Foresters carefully pruned them to encourage straight, tall growth ideal for naval use—oaks were prized for strong, durable ship components, while straight trunks supported masts and spars.
atlasobscura.com
The trees matured over ~150 years. In 1975, when the forest was ready for harvest, the navy noted that ships were now made of steel, so the oaks were largely left standing or repurposed (some for other high-quality timber needs). This "forest planted for a fleet that never came" remains a notable case of deliberate, long-term arboriculture for maritime purposes.
I’ve heard that pines were the preferred wood for masts because they’re light yet strong and flexible. I think Scotch pine was another sought after tree. Oak would be ideal for most other parts of the ship. I think they had to replace masts periodically as they dried out and lost some of their flexibility and strength.
Funny we were talking about this.
Last night a bad thunderstorm rolled through and knocked out power out until 3:00 this afternoon.
Had to close the shop for the day
Didn't take out any trees but I had to lash the door on our sunroom shut.
And, I'm getting tornado warnings this afternoon...
Thankfully there's no tornado eggs near me.
Next time you have black skies see if you can get a good photo. As a Northeast guy surrounded by trees my experience in tornado alley was surreal.
I'm getting tree envy from this topic.
😂I can nerd out talking about trees even more than I can about cars.
Sadly, so can I. Definitely a little embarrassing. Even though I have 500 trees on the property. None of them are spectacular is what you guys have. My best tree is 50 foot yellow birch. Which goes completely yellow in September. If I live long enough, I might see you’d get to 75 feet.
Up to 7 vehicles and counting towed in after trees landed on them. Now the never-ending line of hail damage cars has been rolling in. This white Kia looks like they came out with a new Titleist Edition. I wonder if the dings reduce drag just like a golf ball. 🤔
What a shame. If every panel in the car is dented will it be fixed or totaled?
First time my son every rented a car he was in Colorado and got hit by a nasty hail storm. Car looked like that.
Something we rarely ever see in New England. I can't remember the last time I saw hail.
The next town over got hit with golf-ball sized hail a couple days ago.
Well, the older cars usually total, especially if the roof skin is bad enough to need replacement. Quite a few of the newer cars make it even if they need a roof. That particular car needs a mix of roof and hood replacement, conventional bodywork, and paint less dent repair to the tune of $20k and we’re waiting to hear if it’s going to make it or not. It’ll be close.
Most of what I’m seeing got hit with golf ball sized. One town got some that was at least baseball size. Those cars are MESSED UP.
I've never seen that in Massachusetts. Is this a once in a lifetime thing or does this happen in Conn often?
Not once in a lifetime but still rare. In 2018 we had similar storms go through and had a lot of hail damage. Before that, I remember one year back in the early 2000’s we were fixing a lot of hail damage too.
