10 am: Gee, nice day. Wife opened up the slider to let some fresh air in. Never mind this is early Feb. and should be about 35 degrees. No, its around 65. :rolleyes:
Noon: I shut the door. Wind is picking up.
2 pm: Wife asks me to move her truck and park it in front of the chicken house to act as a wind break.
3 pm: Cab-over camper gets blown sideways off the cinder blocks (horizontal, not vertical!) I had it sitting on. Both front corner jacks are seriously messed up. I do what I can to secure it, including running the Jeep up against it to keep it from going over.
4 pm: Roof of the “Guard Shack” (7x10 framed lien-to off the side of my garage) starts to peel back from the west side. I run out to try to do something, but to no avail. I nearly get hurled into the air holding on to the giant sheet of metal sail. I try to clamp in down to a rafter, but fail. It peels all the way off, except for the last row of fasteners, then it starts to flap, ready to tear apart the 100 amp electoral feed into the garage. I lose it. Whole roof peels back, taking the wood stove chimney, untold amounts of junk I have in this little room and heads east. Its crumpled up against the fence, and I dragged it as well as I could behind the garage to keep it from ending up in Utah.
I’m staggering around in the wind and find one of the collector license plates I had in there, just about to go into the fence. This was the little space that I dearly loved, full of all the odd-ball junk I’ve collected over the years roaming around the desert and junkyards. Looked like the ultimate American Picker’s Paradise. Thankfully, I find out, most of the stuff was beat to the ground as the first panels started flapping wildly. Might of lost some junk, but whatever. The custom-made triangle glass panels survived! I WILL REBUILD!
I’m a little east of Carson City, NV. A whole bunch of my shit is a little east of Fallon, and heading your way.
Been out here nearly 20 years and although its always windy, never had wind that bad. News guy says gusts up to 70-80mph.
Up nice and early to go and assess the damage and maybe get crackin’ on repairs. It really nice out right now. Gotta cook first. Promised the kid pancakes.
From Marshall Dodge and Robert Bryan’s *Bert & I *recordings: During the last hurricane, Myron Hubbard lost the tin roof off of his henhouse. It fetched up on the side of Schoodic Mountain, all mangled and twisted. A friend suggested to Myron that he send it railway express to the Ford Motor Company in Detroit, Michigan and sell it for scrap.
A year went by, and Myron got a letter from Ford, saying, “We don’t know what hit your car, Mister, but you tell us the year and the model number, and we’ll work overtime to get it straightened out for you!”*
From the same source: *“My day’s been one long fezzle from beginning to end.”
** For those of you unfamiliar with Bert & I, a series of humorous stores told in down east Maine dialect, here is a sample: Which Way to Millinocket? (This story is the origin (or at least the popularizer) of the old New England saying, “You can’t get there from here”.)
Sounds like you have now experienced those “straight line” winds they were always yammering about when I lived in MO (when they weren’t talking tornados, thunderstorms, hail, snow, sleet, ice - I left!).
I hope you saved the good stuff! Chocolate chips in the pancakes?
Most storm weather kinda enthrals me, but not high winds. When everything starts to, howl it feaks me out!
Glad to hear you’re all okay, and the chickens! Sorry about your sweet collection of odd bits getting unexpectedly distributed. I’m sad for you, as a collector of odd bits myself.
Glad to hear you’ll rebuild though, and that many of your things are there to be recovered!
That’s a lot of excitement! Wishing you calmer days!
Before you start with the repair you need to consider re-design–or this will happen again. The “Guard Shack” needs to be much more solidly built. The cab-over camper needs to be in a building. Perhaps you should get shutters for your house windows and stronger doors…
Just got in. I added some extra framing for the roof. When it goes back on, I’m putting a wind deflector to keep it from getting under the western edge.
Had to quit working. Started to rain. :rolleyes: And the wind is picking up.
Pulled the roof into the garage and took it apart. Straightened it as much as I could and put it back up one panel at a time. Was able to get it flat by working from one edge to the next and doubling up on the screws as I went. Got the last panel up and secured just as the rain started to fall.
Got a little more work to do, and need a new stove pipe and I’m back in business. The dogs will be happy. They love to sit by the woodstove and chill out with tunes with me. Their rugs got all wet while the roof was gone, so I gotta dry them out.
