The Day Our Trees Died

Eastern Black Walnut Tree laying in the gravel road

Tornado Alley extends up through Iowa. Though this time it was no tornado, just intense wind gusts during a thunderstorm that caused all the trouble.

Western Black Walnut Tree-this is the one that fell right on top of the raspberry bushes. You can see from this photo how far into the road it fell.

Our property has many trees, and despite thinning them out and other storms, we still have many, many trees. But with 100 mile an hour wind gusts through the yard, we lost two of our oldest.

Both trees were ripped out by the roots from the ground with the force of the wind.

Two Black Walnut Trees (Tyler estimates about 50 feet high) were pulled out from their roots. They fell onto the gravel road on the southwest side of our property, blocking the street. They fell right on top of our bountiful raspberry bushes. Squished them to the ground. The city came and pushed the trees onto our yard late the night the storm happened.

Perspective on the size of tree via Tyler ontop of the tree removing the smaller branches.

The next morning, Tyler headed out to chop down the trees with the chainsaw. Myself, my mom and my mother in law came over to help sort and move branches and debris as Tyler cut them down. The heat index was 100 degrees.

You can see the root system is taller than me, as it extends into the giant crater hole both trees have left in our yard.

This is one of the pitfalls of where we live. Dangerous storms, difficult days cleaning up, and the possible loss of produce and veg to the elements. But we are thankful the house is good, I am thankful to have a hulk by my side and some incredibly strong and helpful family members, and also that I was able to eat a little tiny strawberry from my garden today to wash away my sadness about our raspberry bushes untimely death.