Wind storms

This year we have had two huge wind storms that have done damage. The first one was the first of May. I was flying home from Missouri after watching the grandkids when this one hit. 

 Joseph was on his way to church when he saw this tree down and asked the people if they needed help. He went home and got his chain saw. Brother Syndergaard showed up with his as well.

 Part of the tree had landed on the truck so Joseph went home and got this big jack that he bought to have on hand in emergency's. It was perfect.

 He was able to put it under the branch and lift it up off the truck so they could pull it out.

 Then the middle of September another major storm hit, this time a tornado touched down just north of us in Washington Terrace. I could see the storm coming and it looked nasty. I quickly got the chickens in their coop and got back in the house when it hit. I have never seen anything like this storm and we have had many windstorms through the years. The garage door was rattling something awful so I locked the door between the garage and the house just in case the  garage door blew out.  I was taking a picture of the trees to send to the kids when I thought it is really stupid to stand at the window, you don't know what could come flying into it. I stepped away and looked out the back yard came back to the front and this is the sight that met my eyes.

 One of our maple trees had snapped.  I couldn't believe it.  When Joseph got home from work we started cutting it down, our neighbors the Roses came across the street to help. The power was off so they mainly used hand tools. to cut the branches up and get them off the sidewalk.

 We couldn't stand the gap that was left and Joseph wanted to get a tree before the leaves were gone because we wanted to get the right maple. Apparently we have Autumn Blaze Maple trees. They are such an incredible red in the fall.

Our neighbor Todd Ricks came over and helped Joseph plant our new tree. A lot smaller than our 20 year old trees, but hopefully it will do well.  We were fortunate that this is all we lost, several homes were lost in the tornado. In our neighborhood many trees were down, a friend lost part of their roof, some people where Joseph works had their windows blown out of their cars. Joseph said when the storm hit he was looking out the window and dirt and debris lifted straight up. He said it was a strange sight.