{"id":2648,"date":"2014-06-09T21:39:06","date_gmt":"2014-06-10T03:39:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/?p=2648"},"modified":"2014-07-30T11:20:44","modified_gmt":"2014-07-30T17:20:44","slug":"rare-tornado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/rare-tornado\/","title":{"rendered":"Rare Tornado!"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n

We sort the wood into two types, firewood and burn pit wood. This time out we didn’t\u00a0bring the aluminum trailer to cart the burn pit wood away but instead created piles of each wood type, planning to take it away during\u00a0a 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).<\/p>\n

I’ll get to the Saturday work in a bit, but first I’ll cover Sunday’s unusual event, a tornado.<\/p>\n

The forecast had included a chance of thunderstorms. We had risen, had breakfast, and started to work on clearing a pocket of\u00a0dead 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:<\/p>\n

\"Funnel<\/a>

Funnel cloud over South Park<\/p><\/div>\n

I told Pam I thought this was a funnel, or tornado, cloud. A telephoto shot yielded a larger image:<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A rare mountain tornado<\/p><\/div>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Sanderling experienced\u00a0no problems, other than rain and a very little bit of hail, and light winds\u00a0as this storm passed. \u00a0We 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+ \u00a0feet are rare events indeed!<\/p>\n

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 \u00a0photos that illustrate the work:<\/p>\n

This “before” shot is near the shed but shows the typical dead wood found almost everywhere on the lower part of the lot:<\/p>\n

\"Typical<\/a>

Typical dead and downed aspen on the lot<\/p><\/div>\n

\"After<\/a>

After clearing you can walk around easily<\/p><\/div>\n

This is the area where the dog run will go. The wood ended up stacked near the driveway:<\/p>\n

\"Burn<\/a>

Burn pit wood (front) next to\u00a0firewood and brush stacked along driveway<\/p><\/div>\n

Sunday’s work yielded another before and after pair of photos:<\/p>\n

\"Top<\/a>

Top of drive before clearing started<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Piles<\/a>

Piles of wood await further handling<\/p><\/div>\n

Piling the wood this way means we can stage\u00a0more loads destined\u00a0for\u00a0the burn pit (when it’s\u00a0open, only on Saturdays), but it also\u00a0means we have to handle the stuff two more times\u00a0—\u00a0once to load into the trailer than again to unload at the pit. This is the major project \u00a0for the rest of the year so we can work at our own pace. \u00a0(After we get the dog run installed, that is.)<\/p>\n

Even though the weekend was truncated – we left for home early Sunday afternoon – we did meet\u00a0the goals we had set for this land-clearing trip. It is heartening to see progress being made!<\/p>\n

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.) \u00a0Pam is also carting mulch from under the trees to dump in the middle of the drive circle. \u00a0I think she has plans to transplant\u00a0trees and plants in that spot.<\/p>\n

\"Car,<\/a>

Car, shed, RV, driveway, and wood removed from dog run area<\/p><\/div>\n

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!<\/p>\n

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:<\/p>\n

I hear ya,\u00a0Tabitha.\u00a0 I was just pondering\u00a0the other day how we must be freakin’ crazy to work like convicts every weekend. \u00a0Which 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\u00a0on and off until dark. \u00a0Then, on Sunday, we started\u00a0on another section of woods until it started raining, at which point\u00a0we were done for this trip. \u00a0During breaks there were\u00a0dog 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.<\/p>\n

The property is\u00a0really starting to come along. \u00a0It’s gratifying to tackle a small patch of woods and completely clear it out, then stand back and appreciate the difference. \u00a0 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. \u00a0We’ve discussed bringing up an old rug and old recliner and flopping both on the driveway\u00a0under the RV canopy for sit-downs – who knows, it could happen!<\/p>\n

Weather has been crazy in the mountains this season. \u00a0In addition to sighting the tornado, we drove back through snow flurries on both Hoosier and Vail Passes.<\/p>\n

Happy Trails.<\/p>\n

P.S. No mice this trip!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-land-hunt","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2648"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2666,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2648\/revisions\/2666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}