The Big Storms Of '08

This weekend saw some powerful storms rip through parts of Oklahoma. No tornadoes, thankfully, but some very damaging straight line winds. Speeds between 60-80 mph in some areas. Hail the size of your fist. Flooding. And I learned something from this. Be careful what you wish for. I heard on the news that some areas were getting 60 mph winds for up to three minutes non-stop. "I would like to experience that one time". And it happened. The wind hit and I lost half my tree in my front yard. One whole side of it was ripped off. If you'll remember back to December and the massive ice storm we had, it's the same Bradford Pear tree that the ice got a hold of and nearly took down. But it came back. But not this time. Here's what it looked like before, just as Spring was setting in and it started to blossom. I, sadly, don't have a picture of it in it's full glory. And here's what it looks like today. It's going to have to come down now. It just makes me sick. I loved this tree. Yeah, it was too big. And it was hard to mow around, but I loved it still. I just happened to be looking out my front door when it happened. I heard a pop, you'd think something like that would be much louder, and saw it go down. Never seen anything like it. But it could have been much worse. Some trees were actually uprooted. Big trees.