About 7:30pm on the 29th I got a call from Jeff, out neighbor to the SE that inherited Ben's farm. He said a tornado had come through and he lost his barn, lots of trees, his fences were down, and he was out looking for his cows. He didn't know how our place had fared, but wanted to let me know. I am so glad he did, and immediately made plans to go out first thing the next morning.
We had had warm and humid weather which clashed with a cold front that came through. There were reported tornadoes south and east of Fayetteville, but no mention on the nightly news about Madison/Carroll counties. Just pictures of some downed trees and a few roofs blown off. The only good thing about this weather system is that it brought two inches of much needed rain (total for the month, 2.3"). Wednesday was to be windy and cold with a high of about 32.
Everything looked fine at our place except for this Northern Red Oak I had bare root planted five years ago – just snapped off, and it didn't have any leaves on it. One of the Adirondaks was blown over, but that was it. We even had electricity. (Jeff later told me that Carroll electric beat him out to his place, and had cut two big trees that were across his drive.) I snapped this picture of his hillside (if you look closely you can see barn debris and downed trees), loaded up my chain saw, and headed over to Jeff's.
There were five other men there with him when I arrived, huddled behind his garage to get out of the wind. His garage, house, and well house were fine, but his barn another 100' to the NE was gone -- much of it down the hillside facing our place. This picture shows where the barn once stood. (The blue pieces are steel pins you link together, many of them badly mangled.) He said he was sure the cattle were in the barn at the time, because they always go there to get out of the rain. He was still looking for two cows and there was one down in the ruins of the barn, but hanging on. He was trying to warm it with a heater. He also didn't have water because some debris had hit a yard hydrant and broken the PVC it was tied into underground.
Most of the men disbursed, two staid with Jeff and went looking for the other missing cows and to patch up some fence on the eastern side. I volunteered to clear the trees and limbs off his fence to the west, the lower 40 of which is shared with our property. I told him not to worry about the cattle getting onto our property, and even though much of the western fence was down he didn't think they would get out.
This big pine across the fence was the first tree I cut, looking to the south where you can see our barn and house in the background. (Gosh, I forgot to even check our barn until the end of the day -- all OK.) I cut the trunk just past where it was laying on the wire, and once the load of the tree was off the base it raised right up and off the fence. I figured that was good enough.
These big oaks were down right along the fence line, and given the criss-cross way they fell it sure looked like a tornado. Most trees were laid down to the NNE, but down below there were many big cedars uprooted from the WNW.
Jeff's property is to the left and ours to the right. You can make out the downed fence along here. Our SE corner is where the wooded area to the right starts. There were two huge white oaks across the fence right over the corner -- fell from the owner to the south of our property and west of Jeff's (don't know who is the owner of that undeveloped land). We had this cedar blow over (actually a good thing), and lots of trees and tops in our field from the wooded area right before the fence and from our neighbors property directly south.
These big pines were snapped or uprooted on Jeff's side just up the hill and still looking to the south. You can see his fence line in the distance beyond the draw, which was a tangled mess. That is where I worked mostly, cutting limbs and trees off the the fence. I burned 4 tanks of gas and sharpened the saw twice.
Jeff was going to see if he could get someone to buy some of the downed timber. He had several walnuts down, and I know you can get a nice price for those -- but in no way a replacement for the loss. There is sure plenty of firewood, but no one has need of any since the ice storm almost 4 years to the day past. On my last trip up the hill I loaded what sheet metal scrap I could fit in the truck and hauled it up near where the barn once stood. I told Jeff I would be back out on the weekend to try and help out.
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