Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here today to tell you about our very scary day yesterday. You may remember me from such wind-related posts as “A Windy Interlude”, among at least a few others.
Here I am in a characteristically unsuspecting pose, on the previous evening.
The guy I live with said it was supposed to be windy the next day, and he was kind of worried, because even though it used to be really windy here in the last century, it hadn’t been very windy in this century, to the point where he was “creeped out” about the lack of wind here.
They said there would be winds maybe in excess of a hundred miles per hour (161 kph). That’s pretty windy, if you didn’t know.
Actually he was nervous indeed. I know he’s been that way ever since his wife died, and there are always people who try to tell him how to feel, but in general he just lives with this, and is aware that he’s nervous or worried. He often seems calm to me, though.
The day started out perfectly fine and ordinary, and then the wind came up. I got scared. There was one time when we were both outside, checking on something, and the wind blew so hard I got scared and couldn’t figure out how to get back inside, because we went out through the garage, but finally the guy I live with led me safely back into the house.
We even have a movie. The guy I live with took this when “it wasn’t so windy”; that was because he could stand up outside, which he couldn’t, at times.
The only thing that happened here was that part of “the enclosure” fence blew down, but that was because the top and bottom rails had rotted, from all the watering that little garden receives. He was planning to replace that fence anyway.
There were some trees blown down, and fences, too, elsewhere in our neighborhood.
The guy I live with even went out when it was really windy to tie down part of the patio cover, and then, during spells when the wind subsided, he filled the thistle feeders for the goldfinches, who clung to the feeders, eating thistle seed, except when the wind gusted and they hid in the shrubbery. (“Hiding in the shrubbery” sounds like an English mystery, or even Monty Python, I know.)
So that was our day. The wind stopped about three in the afternoon.
Naturally, the wind dried out everything, so the snow we got last week didn’t mean much of anything.
I’ll leave you with a picture of me investigating a downed branch on the dry-as-dust canal road.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
I know wind is a necessary thing, but I find it very frightening too. So much potential damage, and the way it sucks every bit of moisture out of everything. Scary noises, dust, AND when it’s hot it is really scary. Do you find the door to the house partly by smell? Because that wind you show in the video would have blown all your familiar smells away, right? And substituted strange ones?
There were all kinds of loud, scary noises. Things banging against other things. There was a large blue spruce completely blocking our street from the north (you can drive around the neighborhood from the south, though, to get to our house). There was a tree blocking the entrance to the field. (The guy I live with went over and helped the neighbors saw up the tree, so I could go on my evening walk.)
Everything was fine for a little while, and then the wind came up even worse than you see in the video. I got very scared. The guy I live with was calling my name at the top of his lungs because things were so loud, but eventually he walked over and took hold of my collar and led me into the garage, and I went into the house.
The guy I live with explained that, last century, these would be “downslope winds”, coming off the highest part of the Continental Divide, but this was a storm that moved through. I’ve never seen anything like this.
Thank goodness it passed without serious damage – the fence will have to be repaired/replaced, I suppose but that’s not the end of the world.
There are quite a few fences down around here, but the little section here was going to fall over anyway.
Mee-yow Mani an guy that was sum windy storm youss’ had…wee sorry ’bout THE fence! Butt wee are reeleeved yore both A-Okay!
Wee herd ’bout Bad wind inn Iowa an Bald Eagless are still MIA!! An Minny-soda had a Tornado an Whizzconsin had windy storm an guress what??? Wee gotted it too! Way up here……
Last nite wee was watchin Jayne Rio our Singer frend on Twitch an wee losted Hydrow!! As inn as dark as THE A$…innside of a Sally mandur!
BellaSita Mum had flashlitess an candless at THE reedy. Butt it was so scarey Mani….mee wuud not leeve her side. It tooked 3 hourss (1 A Em) fore power to come back on…mee still sleeped with BellaSita….mee iss afraid of THE dark!!
So wee all been traumytized!!!
Sendin ~~head rubss~~an POTP BellaDharma an {{hugss}} BellaSita Mum
Pee S: You look ADOORBS sleepin on yore back Mani ❤
Thanks; I heard the storm went everywhere east of us. It was a very strange event, according to the guy I live with.
But at least we had power the whole time.
It was a furry weerd nite…THE entire week of weather has been scary an unpreedictabell.
Wee so glad you not loset power…
Wee reddy if it happenss again tonite!! 😉
Bee safe Mani an Guy OKay?
Okay. Same to you two.
Wee doin our best! It has snowed a bit today Mani an Guy….iss normal today….
Wee LIKE normal ALOT! 😉
Guud luck with fence reepair two….
I really like normal. The work on the fence is all done, now.
Wee LOVE normal too Mani! Glad THE fence iss fiex.
An xcept fore not feelin 100% purr cent mee an BellaSita Mum had a furry ‘normal’ weekend! 🙂
Normal is excellent.
Now if only our email would work normally. (Long story.)
You having weed email trubbelll too Mani an Guy??? Maybee wee are gonna crash THE Inntynet? 😉
Lots of email trouble. The guy I live with said it was his fault, the way he set it up, and now it can’t be changed.
Did you ever see ‘the Wizard of Oz’? If not, DON”T!
I never have.
Good! It is scary, and involves a pure bred cairn terrier and the girl he lives with in Kansas, and their problem with the wind . . . and a rainbow, . . . . and a scary . . . . oh, nevermind.
I won’t watch anything scary.
That is a good plan.
We were lucky in my area of southern Wisconsin that no serious damage occurred. But it was scary hearing that wind and trying to figure out what was hitting the deck and the roof. When I got out of bed to check, I realized we’d lost power as the light didn’t work.
Lots of people lots shingles on their roofs; fences and trees were blown over, and there’s trash everywhere. On my morning walk we saw a whole bunch of trash that was blown into the canal. (I guess someone will come to remove that.)
It was really scary, but everything is calm now, and very, very dry.
A wind storm is scary even if you are a fierce, brave border collie. It sounds like the world is going to blow away. I am glad you came through the power and intensity to the calmer, dryer side. You and the guy you live with will have great fun rebuilding the enclosure fence, I’m sure.
It was really scary. Though the guy I live with, naturally, had to tell me some stories of windstorms of the past, like the time when (supposedly) a railroad tie was blown through the garage wall here, and the time a friend of his saw a parked car blown across the street (that was in Boulder, which used to be famous for windstorms).
He’s been planning to redo the fence for some time, because it started to lean this way and that. The enclosure is one of the few areas in the garden that gets regular water (once a week, for about fifteen minutes). So the fence got kind of rotted.
There wasn’t any fence at all on the east side of the enclosure, so the guy I live with built a fence there, sort of like the one in part of the Japanese garden at the Botanic Gardens, but with the rails flat, instead of on end, because that would have required more skill and patience than the guy I live with has. (You can see the fence in the fifth picture of my post “The Big Turn Off”.)
He really enjoys doing things like this. I guess tomorrow the plan is to remove I guess what you call slats, in the fallen part of the fence, to store in the garage so they won’t get warped.