Rare Tornado!

This past weekend found us working at our Sanderling lot, clearing a place to put in a dog run. As I have noted before, there is a lot of dead wood on the ground and a fair number of standing dead trees that we remove when given the chance. Most of the standing and downed dead wood is aspen, not surprising given the area, but aspen does not make real good firewood unless you have a lot of it to burn.

We sort the wood into two types, firewood and burn pit wood. This time out we didn’t bring the aluminum trailer to cart the burn pit wood away but instead created piles of each wood type, planning to take it away during a future trip. Eventually the firewood will come home and be donated to our friend Kathy Hall for use in heating her “cat house” (her one-car detached garage).

I’ll get to the Saturday work in a bit, but first I’ll cover Sunday’s unusual event, a tornado.

The forecast had included a chance of thunderstorms. We had risen, had breakfast, and started to work on clearing a pocket of dead wood. Around 11:30 a few raindrops began to fall so we decided to take a break. I happened to look out over South Park and saw this:

Funnel cloud over South Park

I told Pam I thought this was a funnel, or tornado, cloud. A telephoto shot yielded a larger image:

A rare mountain tornado

We later learned a tornado had touched down about 5 miles south of Fairplay, one of 7 or 8 tornadoes sighted in Colorado on the 8th of June. If you search the web for “Fairplay tornado, recent” you will find YouTube videos of this particular storm.

Sanderling experienced no problems, other than rain and a very little bit of hail, and light winds as this storm passed.  We had never heard of a tornadic event in the high country, much less seen one. Plenty of tornadoes form in eastern Colorado and head into the center of the country, but tornadoes at 10,000+  feet are rare events indeed!

It is hard to top that, but on a more mundane level: Our work on Saturday, and Sunday morning before the rain, consisted of mostly grunt work moving dead wood around. We started below and to the downhill side of the drive as that is where Pam has decided the dog run will be built. Here are a few  photos that illustrate the work:

This “before” shot is near the shed but shows the typical dead wood found almost everywhere on the lower part of the lot:

Typical dead and downed aspen on the lot

After clearing you can walk around easily

This is the area where the dog run will go. The wood ended up stacked near the driveway:

Burn pit wood (front) next to firewood and brush stacked along driveway

Sunday’s work yielded another before and after pair of photos:

Top of drive before clearing started

Piles of wood await further handling

Piling the wood this way means we can stage more loads destined for the burn pit (when it’s open, only on Saturdays), but it also means we have to handle the stuff two more times — once to load into the trailer than again to unload at the pit. This is the major project  for the rest of the year so we can work at our own pace.  (After we get the dog run installed, that is.)

Even though the weekend was truncated – we left for home early Sunday afternoon – we did meet the goals we had set for this land-clearing trip. It is heartening to see progress being made!

I’ll close with this last photo of our Honda parked near the RV and shed at the top of the circle drive. (It also includes another view of the dead wood we had moved to clear the dog run area.)  Pam is also carting mulch from under the trees to dump in the middle of the drive circle.  I think she has plans to transplant trees and plants in that spot.

Car, shed, RV, driveway, and wood removed from dog run area

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:

I hear ya, Tabitha.  I was just pondering the other day how we must be freakin’ crazy to work like convicts every weekend.  Which is why this past weekend we slept in on Saturday morning before organizing our departure, drove in a leisurely fashion and arrived at the Sanderling property mid-afternoon, worked on and off until dark.  Then, on Sunday, we started on another section of woods until it started raining, at which point we were done for this trip.  During breaks there were dog walks to look for squirrels – I spooked a field mouse and I think Blondie would still be sitting patiently by the hole the mouse disappeared into if we’d left her up there.

The property is really starting to come along.  It’s gratifying to tackle a small patch of woods and completely clear it out, then stand back and appreciate the difference.   Having the RV right by the work area is a major convenience; we’re not wasting energy walking back and forth for drinks and dog checks because everything is right in one spot.  We’ve discussed bringing up an old rug and old recliner and flopping both on the driveway under the RV canopy for sit-downs – who knows, it could happen!

Weather has been crazy in the mountains this season.  In addition to sighting the tornado, we drove back through snow flurries on both Hoosier and Vail Passes.

Happy Trails.

P.S. No mice this trip!