What Falls Away

Last Friday, the crabapple trees in the garden were covered with blooms and attended by thousands of ecstatically buzzing bees and bumbles. The next day, something akin to a tornado rampaged through the area, and farewell to fragrant crabapple offerings, not to mention many of the trees themselves. Whole woodlots were wrenched out of the ground, and there are wide expanses where no trees are left standing at all.

Goodbye to hydro towers, transformers, residential roofs, fences, garden sheds, telephone poles, trees and shrubberies. Windows were smashed and roof shingles shredded. Patio umbrellas, chairs and flower pots  were liberated from their moorings and went tumbling up the street in noisy, exuberant throngs, proclaiming their freedom from domestic tyranny. Beau and I watched them go and wondered if we were next.

The little blue house in the village escaped damage, and we still have power, but other parts of the metropolitan area were not so lucky, and it will be several days before power is restored everywhere and homes are repaired.  Community centers have set up kitchens and recharging stations so residents have access to hot beverages, cold drinks, food and recharging for their laptops, tablets and cell phones. Those who who still had old rotary phones retrieved them from storage and put them back to work.

It is a happy thing that most of the trees in the village survived the big blow, but I could weep when I think of the dear old trees who were destroyed by the storm. Some were more than a century old, and I considered them friends.