It was a dark and stormy night....

"Squalls out on the Bering, big storm coming in soon" -- apologies to Jimmy Buffett.

This is the storm before it came across southern Alaska.

That's a picture of it before it hit here.

And boy, did it come in.

Overnight Sunday-Monday the power went out between midnight and 1 a.m. and wasn't restored until 5 the next afternoon. 

Gusts hit this house louder than any I have heard in my life, and if you read this blog you know I have been in storms at sea and out in the weather.  The house seemed to handle it fine, the trees outside didn't do as well.

Over by the woodpile in the morning it looked like a war zone.  Three big spruce came down, one hitting the firewood pile, another landing on the snowmachine trailer. Fortunately there was no real damage but a lot of work cleaning up.  In the little triangle of wood lot out front two more spruce came down and in the driveway the shattered top of a rotten cottonwood just missed the Jeep.

The mountainside above Anchorage experienced gusts to 106 mph.  Even the local paper here doesn't mention wind speeds. A search for weather history on the National Weather Service site says there is no data for this zip code. Some days it's great to be off the map, on others, not so much.

Tree on the left  is on the trailer, at 
right, the woodpile.  A third is down 
in the central background.

Once the damage had been assessed, the cleanup began. Pretty obvious, after all that stacking of firewood, I now have that much or more to go through.

But as always in Alaska, before you can do something, you have to do something else. Since the last trip to the East Pole I have been meaning to buy a new chain for the saw. The old one broke out there. Well, as per usual, had to go get a chain for the saw before I could even begin cutting.

Once that was accomplished I went after the first tree, the one on the trailer. Went to the far end first and cut the top off.  Then back to the front of the trailer to remove that section of trunk.  When I cut through that one, the weight of the roots and the attached dirt and rocks countered the weight of the remaining trunk and it suddenly swung upright.  That's the way it still stands, more on that in a bit.

Another view of the main damage.

Spent more than an hour cutting off branches and then bucking the trunk into stove sized pieces to be split later. That finished off Monday.

Tuesday I went after the tree that fell on the wood pile.  This was a little trickier. The top was hung up in another tall tree.  I went to the end of the woodpile and cut the trunk there.  Fortunately after a bit of pinching that almost caught the bar. the two separated, the upper section moved a little in the tree and then stuck again and a long, heavy piece remained on the wood pile. I managed to get that cut from the stump and then pulled it off to the ground. And then began the chore of restacking all the wood.

The tree in the foreground is the third one.  That's the 

one on the trailer behind it.

Next morning I went after the stumps.  I had this grand idea that I could pull them out with the Jeep. I attached to the bigger one first, wrapped chain twice around the stump as high up as I could reach for leverage and connected the ends with a Master lock. Then I attached a tow strap to the chain loop and the Jeep. A steady pull didn't move anything except gravel under the tires. I tried releasing strain and then surging forward.  That was not a good idea.  I tried a couple of short jerks first and then gave it a good hard hit. There was a loud bang and the Jeep came loose from the stump. When I checked, the lock had disappeared but everything else seemed intact. Where that lock went I have no idea, just damned lucky it didn't come through the back window of the vehicle. I have seen tow lines on boats part and people can be killed in the snap back.  It isn't pretty.  Lucky one that time.

Top of the cottonwood that came down.

But no reason to give up.  I went after the second stump. It was looser and smaller and some of the roots were broken. I dug out one large root and cut it with the chainsaw and then attached with just the tow strap.  A nice steady pull ripped that one right out. I had other things to do that day so I quit.

Next day after a trip with Walter to the vet, I went to buck up what I had cut but the brand new chain blade wouldn't even make sawdust. (A well-sharpened saw is supposed to make small chips.) It was then I remembered cutting through a nail somewhere on that first tree, which couldn't have been good for it, and then there was cutting the root out and the rocks around it. That's probably a ruined blade. It was the same as a knife that wouldn't cut butter. So, rather than quit, I went after the top of the second tree still hung up in the trees.  I got a rope around the trunk near the ground and attached it to a come-along attached to another tree. When I cranked on it it moved and fell a little way through the tree.  It came down enough so I can reach far along it and cut out another section that should let the rest of it fall. That was enough of that for the time being.

This the hookup for the first stump, note it is vertical now.

I mean, what could go wrong here? I might be needing
some yellow machinery for this one.

I took Walter for a long walk and on the way back we cut through the woods on the front of the lot. That's where I found two more fallen trees, both angled and hung up at the top in other trees. Those are going to be tough.  One didn't break fully off the stump and the other is still attached to a pretty big root ball. They are far in the future.  We continued our walk out to the power right of way behind the house. That's where I found a tree had fallen across the feeder line to this house and the neighbor's. No way I was touching that. I called the utility and they came today and took care of it.

Hookup for the second.

And, success.

These are the two in the front yard.

So, we are now at Thursday after the Monday storm. A doctor's visit near the closest store that sells chains (it's a 40-mile round trip) took care of that  problem and we'll attack it in the morning.  I sharpened the old blade and if it will cut at all I'll use it to get the roots on the stump that wouldn't come out.  I said will because by the time we got everything done today Thursday Night Football was on, trick or treaters were coming up the driveway and after all there are priorities.

So right now we are not even finished with the part where all the wood is reachable for cutting. When it's all done, I should have again as much firewood as I have now, even if it is the faster burning spruce. Right now it is all so green it wouldn't burn well at least until next winter.

Thinking maybe next summer I will fill the four-wheeler trailer and haul some over to the Jim Creek Recreational Area parking lot and sell it for outrageous prices to the weekenders.

Hoping I can at least get it all cleaned up before the next storm comes through.