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beware of the trees

February 3, 2024 9:24 pm

Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here today for a short post. You may remember me from such posts as “How To Avoid Gardening”, among so many, many others.

Here I am in a characteristic pose.
I guess this technically isn’t a pose, so I’m indulging in some poetic license here. Or postic license, maybe.

You can tell what happened this morning. It rained all night, which the guy I live with said was “beyond totally weird”, even though he liked it a lot, and then when he finally got out of bed this morning, it was snowing.

The temperature was above freezing so it was very wet, heavy snow. It’s not supposed to get too cold tonight, so this is more like a spring snow.

He took some pictures of the willows as we walked by, not suspecting at all what might happen when we walked under them.
As we came back this way, I heard a sudden cracking sound and kind of raced ahead, dragging the guy I live with behind me.
That was pretty scary. The branch wasn’t that big, but one of us might have been hit by it.
The guy I live with said I was fairly heroic. Not to be immodest, but that is one of my duties, protecting the guy I live with. And myself too, of course.

I don’t have anything else for today.

Until next time, then.

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Posted by paridevita

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26 Responses to “beware of the trees”

  1. As I read this, the weather is frightful. I am getting messages that a few trees fell at work, and on the roads that the crew needs to get to work here in the morning. It is nothing too unusual, but is concerning nonetheless.

    By tonytomeo on February 4, 2024 at 9:19 pm

    1. The guy I live with saw pictures of big trees blown over. That doesn’t happen here very often, except with really heavy snows in April and May, when trees, usually conifers, fall over because of wet soil.

      By paridevita on February 5, 2024 at 8:17 pm

      1. The forests are very different in different locations. As you know, your forests are ‘generally’ tolerant of snow because they need to be. Snow here would be HORRIBLE. Not many redwoods live high up enough to experience snow. The redwoods here would be unable to support even a light snow. Trees are resilient to what they encounter most, and since ours are not accustomed to snow, they are not resilient to it.

        By tonytomeo on February 5, 2024 at 9:49 pm

      2. Well, we can grow sequioas here, though not many people do.

        By paridevita on February 6, 2024 at 1:06 pm

  2. Stay safe, Mani. Yes, the rain all that night and snow all the next day was welcome even if somewhat dangerous for uprights and their guardians.

    By Tails Around the Ranch on February 5, 2024 at 9:06 am

    1. Thanks. Those willows do have branches that break all the time. Sometimes really big branches.
      Silver maples can be even worse though; the guy I live with said that during one spring snowstorm he saw big silver maple branches just break off and fall to the ground.

      By paridevita on February 5, 2024 at 8:20 pm

      1. How well I’m familiar with huge silver maples and their propensity to break off large branches. They’re a rotten tree and I’m almost glad the city has pretty much declared war on them. Their cute hollows out making them very brittle and prone to breakage. Other maples are fine but silver maples are the worst.

        By Tails Around the Ranch on February 5, 2024 at 8:25 pm

      2. The guy I live with says they’re planted all over this neighborhood. When the development was built, apparently everyone got their choice of free “shade tree”, and instead of picking decent trees like oaks, which would have done very well if planted in the deep, nice native soil, people picked silver maples.
        The neighborhood has these “bands” of alkaline soil, from soil trucked in as backfill, and so there are also a bunch of chlorotic silver maples which are pretty hideous. Yellow leaves in the summer.

        By paridevita on February 6, 2024 at 1:04 pm

      3. They are in abundance in NW Denver too. I’m guessing it was because they are a relatively quick grower and people were only thinking about shade.

        By Tails Around the Ranch on February 6, 2024 at 1:16 pm

      4. The guy I live with said that’s probably exactly right. There are a lot of hideous silver maples around town, branches broken by snow, which is why they’ve been banned in parks and other places. Shallow roots, too.
        So many other trees to choose from. There are really nice sycamores on Marion Parkway just a couple of blocks south of Alameda. And large oaks all over the place. The guy I live with’s friend lives in Wheat Ridge and there are a bunch of large oaks just north of her house.

        By paridevita on February 6, 2024 at 11:19 pm

  3. Good job Mani. Keep up the good work with your protective services. Getting hit by falling branches doesn’t feel good and that branch looks big enough that it could have caused some real damage.

    By Jerry on February 5, 2024 at 7:32 pm

    1. Thanks; it was pretty scary. There’s a really big half-broken branch on the same tree. I forget when that happened.

      By paridevita on February 5, 2024 at 8:21 pm

  4. Well done Mani. Always have to be careful when there is a full heavy snow load especially with willows. Not the strongest wood out there. We started off with rain and then got about 4 inches of snow too. They are telling us that we are in a 1 in 100 year drought currently so any precipitation no matter how it comes is very welcome.

    By elaine323d8db4a7 on February 5, 2024 at 9:24 pm

    1. Thanks. The guy I live with said all this snow is infinitely preferable to “fire weather” warnings, and it’s supposed to snow Wednesday, and maybe stop some time next week.
      That means the snowdrop display will be on hold for a while, but he said that’s okay.

      By paridevita on February 6, 2024 at 1:06 pm

  5. Yore SO brave Mani!!!! An hansum!

    Well dun savin Guy! An wuud you look at THE snow?!?!?

    Wellcome back Winter **sighss**

    ~~~head rubss~~~BellaDharma~~~ an 🙂 BellaSita Mum

    By BellaDharma an BellaSita Mum on February 6, 2024 at 1:21 pm

    1. Thanks. I like to think I’m super-brave.
      We have even more snow in the forecast, but the guy I live with says that’s okay.

      By paridevita on February 6, 2024 at 11:20 pm

      1. You ARE supurr brave Mani!!

        Enjoy THE snow>>Pleese send us sun OKay?

        By BellaDharma an BellaSita Mum on February 7, 2024 at 1:07 pm

      2. Thanks; I agree.
        It’s not sunny here right now…

        By paridevita on February 7, 2024 at 3:50 pm

      3. It was a bit sunny earlier butt cloudy a gettin dark heer now Mani…

        By BellaDharma an BellaSita Mum on February 7, 2024 at 4:01 pm

      4. Sunny here right now.

        By paridevita on February 7, 2024 at 4:19 pm

      5. Lucky!! Iss nite time now Mani…dark an chilley…..BBBRRRR!

        By BellaDharma an BellaSita Mum on February 7, 2024 at 5:18 pm

      6. So far we are lucky; it hasn’t been very cold here, even though it looks like it is.

        By paridevita on February 8, 2024 at 9:56 am

      7. Iss at freezin point heer at nite an above inn day time. Sun iss tryin to shine butt it iss more cloudy than sunny Mani!

        By BellaDharma an BellaSita Mum on February 8, 2024 at 10:00 am

      8. Snowing here today.

        By paridevita on February 10, 2024 at 4:11 pm

  6. Good job, Mani!

    By leerecca on February 6, 2024 at 6:55 pm

    1. Thanks. One of my duties is to be ever on the lookout for danger.

      By paridevita on February 6, 2024 at 11:21 pm

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