Uh-oh!

Yesterday when I came home from work the wind was really blowing hard, but it never occurred to me that it could be THAT much of a problem since I wasn't hearing very much lightning and thunder - just wind and pouring rain.  But this morning when Buddy and Lisa got here I asked them to check and see why the fence charger was flashing, indicating that it was shorting out.  I assumed weeds or something had grown up and were touching it.  Ha!  I wish! 

Instead, it turned out that just half of one of those huge trees along the back of the property had broken off and fallen onto the fence.  And it was a HUUUUGE tree.  The part of it that landed on the fence is probably more than 3 feet in diameter.  The top wire on that fence is 5 feet high so -- check it out.

When I first looked out there, Duke was standing right there next to that tree rubbing his head against the trunk.  He was on the other side where there are more side branches keeping him away from the down part of the fence.  Once I saw that, I got Buddy to bring him up and lock him in his paddock for a while because if he were to go around to the side where this picture was taken he might very well have decided to just step over it and go for a visit down the road since there were no side branches sticking out to keep him in on that side! 

I went over to the hardware store and bought some rope and Buddy ran that back and forth across the space where the wire is down.  I hope that works until Mark gets home. 

This is the spot where I was afraid Duke would get out.  I HOPE that rope prevents that -- although an ELECTRIC fence is a lot more dependable.  Sure will be glad when Mark gets home and clears that tree out so we can turn the fence back on.

Buddy said he would come back on Wednesday afternoon after he gets off work if Mark wants him to help cut up that tree with a rented, really LARGE chain saw.  That was very nice of him. 

But as you can see in the satellite picture below, that entire back fence line is full of huge OLD trees - probably a good hundred years old - so they will no doubt all be ready to blow down at some point.  The land ain this area, along the Mississippi River, was divided into "arpents," strips of land that were only about 180 feet wide facing the river (now on the River Road), and then ran in long, long strips away from the river.  So when you look at much of the land here that has not been cleared, you can actually make out the rows of trees spaced 180-some feet apart that originally divided those arpents of land.  So those trees are old, old, OLD! 

There's our place there in the top middle with that curved patio in back. 
So those lines of trees on our property have
obviously been there for a century -- maybe even longer.

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When you zoom out, you can see the old rows of trees that remain along our side of the road -- and in the wood across the road from us as well if you look closely. 

You can't really tell from the picture below, but that fallen tree limb was so big that it's sticking out into the pasture a good 30 or 40 feet. 

Mark asked me to check the corner posts since that's where the pressure would go when something lands on the fence like that.  That hadn't occurred to me.  I looked at the posts near where the tree fell, but that was all.  So I went back out to check and - sure enough.  The corner posts have been pulled inward - although they are still sufficiently secure.

Post - north corner

Post - west corner

I'm glad I generally keep the horses closed inside their paddocks when it storms.  We may lose a fence, but we won't lose any horses (or mule) anyway if some more of those trees come down!