Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but WOW...

[DazeGoneBy]

For the last month or so, I've been wanting to make a new roost ladder out of halved branches. I was hoping a branch I could use might come down from some of the bigger trees on our property, so I've been keeping my eye out for something big enough to use.

Be careful what you wish for. About 9:00am I heard a loud crack and ran outside to see this:

This is the very sitting spot my family and I were under last night watching the chickens free range in the yard. I think it would have killed us if we'd been under there when it fell. No wind, no rot or insects found at the breaking spot. I blame the drought around these parts. It has been brutal on our 75-yr-old trees.

Anybody else need some branches for a ladder? Or, for that matter, a coop?

 

[chi-rn]

Oops! Looks like eastern North Carolina!

 

[DazeGoneBy]

I wish! NC is beautiful! I'm in Texas.

Here's another view...you can see the table we sat around last night in that mess.

 

[equusbeth]

I'm so sorry!! This summer has been miserable and the drought is affecting our trees too. We had a branch come down but thankfully not that big. I'm so glad everyone is ok!!

 

[Hawkeye95]

YIKES!! this has been a brutal summer. My oldest horse has had serious heat stroke twice this summer- nearly died both times! I'm ready for this heat to end. Today was 110 again, just SICK of it!!!

 

[DazeGoneBy]

Thanks equusbeth! We feel very blessed!

Loralee, me too! I keep thinking, OK, we can make it another week...I think I've said at about 17 times now. We are setting records here every day! Number of days without rain,number of days over 105, number of CONSECUTIVE days over 100. Phew~ I think Texas is trying to turn to desert...didn't know Kansas was right there with us! So sorry about your horse!

 

[aoxa]

Ahh >_< We have had so much rain it's a sin! Our poor chickens get very little sun it seems. They soak it up any second they get

 

[debid]

Thank goodness no harm or damage was done!

We had a mature tree come down on a still night recently. It picked exactly the perfect angle to not hit the young tree growing nearby nor the house. If it had, it would have been in our bedroom.

It did show rot at the base but we had no idea because of the ivy growing around the trunk.

As my husband was cutting it up for firewood, he noticed that it had a nice elbow in one of the larger limbs. That chunk has replaced the ugly, makeshift ramp in the chicken run.