Earth, Wind & Fire! (not the band... the elements)

Last week was a doozy here in Southern California.  We had temperatures in the upper 90's, and winds with gusts of 70-80 mph depending on where you were.  Here in the Inland Empire, we were in the 80 mph gusts for sure. 

It's hard to convey the strength of the wind in a video.  The trees behind our house were blowing around a lot, and the wind was howling, but the video just doesn't do it justice.  Once you see the Pipsqueak's hair blowing around you can tell how hard it was gusting.

 

It took us the entire weekend to set everything right again. The Guy and the neighbor's grandson had to fix the fence.  They set the new support posts in concrete, so that sucker's not going anywhere.  Then on Sunday, we had to clean up all of the branches and pine needles, fix up all of the broken veggie branches, and re-stake everything that came down.  It was really a mess. 

 

We were about fifteen miles from the  Etiwanda fire that claimed 2000 acres.  We were close enough to have terrible air quality and ash raining down, but we were far enough to be out of harms way.  Kudos to all of the firefighters who worked so valiantly to save the homes of the residents in the fire zone!

Here's a look at our yard during second day of the winds:

 

The berries just fell, and I intended to leave them down for the three days of predicted wind.  Well, The Guy was trying to be helpful, because he's that kind of guy, and he hooked them up to the fence after the first day.  Unfortunately, the wind kept on blowing and blowing, and it snapped much of the new growth off.  Pretty sure the wind has just ended my dreams of a bumper crop this year.  <sigh>
 

In this photo, you can see the berries laying down, and what's that?  Yeah, it's a shattered glass table.  Oh joy.  Glass shattered amongst dirt and rocks.  How the heck we're ever going to get it all up is beyond me.   We've blocked off this side yard so the doggies can't get glass in their paws.

 

 

 This is where The Trampler hung out for most of the three days that the wind was kicking.  He didn't want any part of it. We lost a good section of our fence between our house and the neighbor's yard, too (which I didn't get a picture of), so then I couldn't let them out even if I wanted to. 

The wind took our swing, which weighs A LOT, and tossed it into the yard.

 

 

 

Green Thumb Out.