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JINXED

December 31st, 2013

Well, we did it – we jinxed ourselves. On our podcast on Sunday evening we were talking about how our chicken coop had barely escaped a HUGE branch that fell in the big ice storm. Monday morning when I went out to the coop I saw this:
chicken coop 2
chicken coop 1
chicken coop 3
Yep a big branch right through the side. At least it wasn’t too bad, I will still be able to open the door when the ice melts. We’ve been wanting to rebuild the run anyways, now it looks like that task is going to be moved to the top of the list. We’re considering a hoop house type structure instead of this wood framed one, we’ll see what ends up getting built.

Have you ever had any damage to property from storms?

7 Comments to “JINXED”
  1. Amy on December 31, 2013 at 7:14 am

    Yikes! No damage to structures, thankfully, but the ice storm we had in January 2012 took off almost every branch on one side of the lone, really tall fir in our pasture. It looks pathetic, but remains some of the bet shelter for our Scottish Highlands in bad weather.

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  2. Mich on December 31, 2013 at 9:13 am

    Sadly yes :( we live on the top of a wind swept hill and get hit with major winds far too often…add to that mix a lot of very old farm buildings with welsh slate & stonesfield slates. A never ending repair job.

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  3. Nebraska Dave on December 31, 2013 at 9:57 am

    Susy, I haven’t had tree damage to buildings only fence damage. My neighbor next to me has a huge maple tree that is totally dead. The cost of removal from his back yard is just too much for him to take care of it little by little the branches are breaking a falling down to the ground. On a couple occasions the branches have fallen on my backyard chain link fence and over my raised beds at the Urban Ranch where I live.

    Of course you are aware of the garden fence damage at Terra Nova Gardens with the van sliding through the fence there. It took almost a month and much glue to restore the fence back to its almost former glory.

    I’m hoping and praying that you have seen the worst of it for this winter. Have the best Maine Winter day that you can.

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  4. Chris on December 31, 2013 at 6:22 pm

    Yikes! Glad it hit the run instead of the main shelter.

    We received flood damage in the Queensland floods a few years ago, which mostly involved shifting silt that got washed down the hill. We had to try and save as many plants as we could from root-rot. We still lost a few. We had to re-build a retaining wall too.

    But we did have a tree felling accident one day, when David decided to fell a tree a little too close to the house. It just grazed the gutters, thanks to hitting our a-frame chicken coop that was out on the lawn, first. My husband always said I built chicken coops you could take out to sea in, lol.

    Believe it or not, I still have that a-frame. It’s awaiting a makeover. While I try to avoid having accidents, they are an opportunity to redo something over – only better!

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  5. Amy S on December 31, 2013 at 6:39 pm

    yes we have 100+ year old sugar maple just in front of our home. One of the largest branches had a huge crack to the point of looking through it. He installed 4 HUGE bolts in it and so far so good. We’ve been put through many tests so far it’s holding.

    Reply to Amy S's comment

  6. Charlie@Seattle Trekker on December 31, 2013 at 9:15 pm

    It always amazes me that an image that is so full of beauty and magic can also harbor such sadness. Hopefully the new year will bring you better weather.

    Reply to Charlie@Seattle Trekker's comment

  7. DebbieB on January 1, 2014 at 8:17 pm

    Poor chicken run!

    Yes, we’ve had storm damage, here in New Orleans. In ’95 a series of thunderstorms overwhelmed our drainage system, and we got 6″ of water in our house that stayed for 3 days. We had to replace all the flooring and the bottoms of all our walls, and of course all the cabinets in kitchen and bathrooms. And all the doors. Ugh.

    Then during Hurricane Katrina in ’05 our roof was stabbed by an enormous tree limb, like a harpooned whale. Amazingly the roof shingles sealed around the limb and we didn’t have an attic full of water, but we did have to replace the roof. We didn’t get any flood water for that storm, but we did have to wait for 6 months to get a roofer – we had one of those famous “blue tarps” over the roof hole.

    Reply to DebbieB's comment

About

This is a daily journal of my efforts to cultivate a more simple life, through local eating, gardening and so many other things. We used to live in a small suburban neighborhood Ohio but moved to 153 acres in Liberty, Maine in 2012.

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