Between the high winds and rain we’ve been having recently, it’s been a while since my rounds have included all the perimeter of the spruce grove.

The predicted storms have, once again, passed us by – this time to the south – but we have been getting rain almost constantly for the last while.

Which would have been wonderful in the spring. The farmers in the middle of harvesting their crops are now being hit with a triple whammy. A cold late spring followed by a hot dry summer, and now when hot and dry is what the crops need, it’s cold and wet.

That’s the reality of farming, though, and everyone just goes with it. What else can you do?

Yesterday evening, it seemed to have stopped raining, so I did a more thorough walk-about to see what damage there was. There are lots of little branches all over that I will pick up when the weather turns, but very few larger branches. There was a lot more larger branches fallen down around the yard last year, so this shows we’ve been pretty good about getting the dead branches down before they become a problem.

After checking the crab apple trees, I went into the spruce grove where there is an old spruce tree that fell many years ago.

There was another one.

With it being held up by the other trees, it took me a moment to clue in that this was a new thing.

The support of those other trees is also keeping it still attached to the stump.

With this one, we will likely have to just wait until if finally falls the rest of the way before we can clean it up; hopefully, it won’t damage the living trees it’s leaning on.

When I saw another new piece of tree hung up on other trees, I was somewhat perplexed.

There is no stump.

Which means, look around and up!

The other half of the tree is about 15 feet away from the part that broke off.

Both of these are trees that have been dead for some time, so for them to be coming down in the high winds we have been having is expected.

I look forward to working my way deeper into the spruce grove, cleaning out the underbrush, and taking down the dead trees. It’s the damage they do to other trees when they fall on their own that is the issue.

By the time I was taking the last two photos above, it was pouring rain again. I was completely soaked, by the time I got to the house!

It’s another wet day today, and getting colder, so it’s going to be an inside day, for the most part.

With an early bed time.

My husband has his “pre-op” for his angiogram at 8:45am. We will need to leave at least 2 hours early. That give us time to drive to the city, then drive through the city, then for me to drop my husband off and try to find someplace to park, then the time to go through the hospital’s maze to find where my husband has to go for this. They say to arrive early, too. Leaving 2 hours early should get us there about 15 minutes early, barring traffic being too heavy.

Meanwhile, I got an email response this morning from the RCMP officer I’d sent photos of that letter our vandal left with my mom. He hopes to talk to our vandal today, if he can find him, but will be away for the next few days, so it might not happen until next week. I’ve been instructed that, if anything else happens before then, when to call 911 or go to the police offices in either of the two nearest towns.

I don’t expect it to come to that, but it’s good to have explicit instructions about when to call 911.

The Re-Farmer