On Tuesday, February 16 this year we had the coldest weather on record for the State of Texas. Ever. We woke up to -5° and no power. It was hours before the power came on and it was off again before we knew it. Soon we realized we were experiencing rolling blackouts. That was a first.
By Wednesday evening a little after 4:40 pm our power was back on and stayed on! We began to get back to a normal routine being able to do laundry and actually prepare hot meals.
What we didn’t realize until the first week of March was that our forty year old, sixty-five foot pine trees were dying. It was March 3, our wedding anniversary, and we had just returned home from a nice meal out when we started down the driveway and our jaws dropped at the sight of three of our seven pine trees almost covered in dead pine needles. We couldn’t believe it. Three other trees were beginning to show signs as well, the seventh tree was not affected.
Long story short…we spent just under $3,000 having six trees taken down and the stumps ground.
In the photo below there are already two trees on the ground and the third one is being notched for felling.
The photo above is a view from the east side of the house as one of the crew was beginning to limb up the other three trees that were closest to the house. All six of those trees were either too close to the house or the power lines. Or both.
I called this view The Desolation of Smaug. It broke my heart to lose those trees but as soon as they were down I felt a sense of relief. We had worried about one of them coming down in a storm and tearing through our roof.
The stumps were ground the following day and now we have space to put in some raised beds for flowers, herbs and a few vegetables.
Rural Texas Knitter 