Life of Wry

I come by my fears honestly. One of my lifelong fears, bordering on paranoia, is of falling trees. Especially being in a house beneath one of those falling trees. Especially a eucalyptus, because they are so dense and heavy.

This is not unreasonable: I grew up in a dense eucalyptus jungle and wind storms were not infrequent. We had both winter wind storms and hot summer storms (you’ve heard of the hot Santa Ana’s that plague the southland?).  Winds during any season could be fierce. Trees that have fallen on houses and cars have done epic damage.

My mom’s house sits among some humongous eucalyptus trees. About a billion are on her property, give or take.

I’ll just say: wind storms are unsettling.

So last night, the wind blew mightily… not as hard as I’ve seen, but enough to make us plenty nervous. My mom’s house is very sound-tight, but we could hear tons of stuff falling on the roof.

Just as my weather app said it would, the wind settled down about 3:00am. Before I even got out of bed, I got an alert on my phone–because I subscribe to a service that tells you such things–that a tree had gone down on the 3600 block of Palos Verdes Drive North, very close to mom’s house–and was blocking the road. They expected it to be cleared by mid-morning.

It was time to assess the damage….

No trees down! Not even any big branches. Just lots and lots of bark and debris.

I’d happened to take a picture the day before–loving that early morning light to go with the sound of peacocks and mourning doves–which makes for a nice compare and contrast:

Here are a couple more.. this one looking back at the house:

And this one of the back patio—usually so immaculately swept and tidy: