STORM DAMAGES

  What a weekend! We´ve had quite a few storms this winter, and one of them knocked down big spruce trees at our summer cabin. Luckily there was not much damage to the buildings but, oh dear what a mess! My husband and I spent the entire weekend clearing out the "war zone".

This is the sight we woke up to on Saturday morning (if 9.30am still counts as morning). First snow had fallen during the night (or actually it was the second snow. The first one fell six weeks ago, but only lasted a few days). On Friday there was no sign of snow, which is exceptional. Usually permanent snow falls in November. Climate change?

Off to work. Overall there were eleven big ones, like these, lying on the ground and on buildings.

A sorry sight. This spruce was all healthy, but still the storm was stronger. I´m just glad I live in an area where we need not worry about tornados, major floods, earth quakes, or massive fires due to drought. The worst natural catastrophies we have around are these high winds that occur every year. But all they do is knock down trees and rip off roofs. Not nice that either, but everything is relative. Shouldn´t complain.

How lucky were we to have two trunks crash right between these two buildings?! The one on the left is merely a shag at the moment, but we plan to restore it and turn it into a guest house. Chain saw, by the way, is the only tool we have available to help us in our massive task. The shores around the little island our cabin is in, are so full of big rocks that no towboats can get close enough. Makes the restoring and building new more challenging too.

 This is what we tackled.

The good thing about all this is that now we shall get more sunshine through!

Oh dear... But what a great overall workout!!!  And I must admit it was therapeutic, in a way, to work together with my husband.  Working together makes even a boring and exhausting task more fun, enjoyable even. We have been together for over 18 years now, and still enjoy each other´s company, specially when away from the everyday whirlwind. (Now those 18 years don´t make me old, we just started young!  =) I´m no one to give marital advice, but I like to keep in mind positivity and respect for the other. Has worked so far...

Nature showed us it´s beautiful side right before it got dark. Especially here, surrounded by the sea, I can really feel the power and enormous strength nature has. It can be cruel but also gentle. And I have great respect for it.

I´m so glad to have caught this on camera.

We set fire on the brances. The trunks will end up as firewood in our sauna.

Sunday morning begun with sunshine and temperature way below freezing. The motor in our boat had frozen, but my husband worked his magic on it, and we were able to get back to mainland. It wasn´t easy, though. The sea had frozen a good way from our harbour, but since we have an aluminum boat, it didn´t get damaged crushing through the over an inch-thick (3 cm) ice.

All this in just two days. (This is at a natural shore, where the water flows freely and is not frozen nearly as much as at our harbour.)

Funny little ice clumps.

It was so clear and serene. I hated to leave. The real world can not reach our cabin, but it calls us back home. There is school, bills to pay, taking the car to the shop, work, grocery store, dirty dishes, etc. But thank goodness we do have our little getaway place, to hide from reality when we need to!

  The results for the weekend? Well, we did get a lot done, but there is still a lot more to do. Basically we now only were able to clear out the trunks (and tons of branches!) from our neighbor´s yard. You see, not all of our big trees had fallen on our side... And we figured it´s most important to clean up our mess from other people´s property first. =)