Story by Jon Stalnaker AKA The Studebaker Dude
We are getting better at preparing for big storms that are projected to come our way. The last several storms did little damage to our plants as we moved them to safe places where needed, especially our hanging plants on the front porch. We had about three serious storms in a row and perhaps we got a little complacent.
We knew a big storm was on its way when we went to bed but we didn’t protect any of our plants before we settled in for the night. We had our phones ready to hear the storm coverage when it arrived but why didn’t we, at least, take the hanging baskets off the porch. We got up around midnight when the fury portion of the storm blasted through our property.
The winds were probably the fiercest I have seen since we moved here. We have a nice (or should I say had) Texas Star Hibiscus plant in our entryway flowerbed that gets cut down to nothing for the winter and grows back to a beautiful bush about 4 or 5 feet high in the spring. We looked out the windows to the porch and saw the hanging baskets rocking back and forth from 2 o’clock to 10 o’clock, and the hibiscus was laying flat across the entryway. It was too late to go out and take the hanging baskets down or to save the hibiscus. I wasn’t about to go outside in that mess.
When I surveyed the property for damage the next morning, only one of the hanging flowerpots had been thrown from its perch. I found it in the flower bed with a busted bucket. We got lucky, as I have lots of empty buckets to replace it.
The hibiscus was not so lucky.
A few years ago, we lost some siding from the second story during a strong wind event, but luckily, we had some replacement siding in our shed in the backyard. We’ve lost a couple of siding trim pieces before and usually they are easy enough to put back in place if you can find where they go. This time I found a long piece of trim lying in the driveway and I can’t seem to find out where it was on the house. I can see a place in the front where it looks like it would fit and belong, but when I pulled up pictures of my house taken previously, it doesn’t look like that’s where it came from. Not only that, but the place where it could belong is way too high for me to reach, so I’m not even going to climb up there to see.
I love our house, but I don’t like that awful vinyl siding that’s on it. It’s on my list of things I would like to do to upgrade the house, but it’s low on the priority list. I have had some of the trim around the doors replaced with wood and I had some patchwork done with the siding but it’s not so bad as to move up the priority list due to the expense involved with replacing or even painting over it. Maybe one day. So, I will hang on to this mystery trim piece in hopes that one day I will see where it definitely belongs.
We got off easy again this time. I lost a plastic basket for hanging flowers, one of our favorite plants, and I’m not even going to count that mystery trim piece. We drove down Bryan Ave to Subway for dinner yesterday and in the time it took to make two subs and head back to Bryan Ave to go home, we had to detour back to Cleveland Ave to get around a huge tree that was completely covering Bryan. We had just driven down that street about a half hour ago to get to Subway. The tree had crushed one car that was parked at the curb but could have easily taken out another one that was on the road.
With all these windstorms and rain that has saturated the ground, you don’t have to drive very far to see the damage these huge trees make when they topple over from the wind. I have two huge trees in my backyard and I don’t want one of them falling on our house, or even just taking out the Studebakers that are parked in the garage to protect them from the elements. But That’s a God thing, and just like what could happen with a tornado, it’s nothing that I can control. It’s all stuff, stuff I like, stuff that means something to me, something of value (be it monetary or sentimental), but stuff, nevertheless. And a plastic bucket, a nice plant, and mystery trim piece are way down at the bottom of the “stuff” list.
