As we sat on the patio this afternoon, the Idaho breeze was getting pretty strong. Our neighbors have a cottonwood tree in their yard that was planted in the late 1800s. It is a giant. It is so tall that even when the trees in our yard are still, there is a wind current that stirs the top branches. When the turkey buzzards are migrating, they like to linger, just enjoying riding the currents as they circle above the tree. The eagles and hawks do the same, so we sometimes have quite a show. There is nothing to compare with the sound of the wind in the the big cottonwood tree leaves - I suppose the pleasant associations date back to childhood and warm summer nights when we would go to sleep with the windows open, and could hear the sound of the breeze in the cottonwoods over at "Emmy's", about 1/2 a block away, along with the sound of the river, even farther. Those cottonwoods are all gone now, and the river has been decimated to a comparatively small trickle, as more and more water upstream has been diverted for irrigation purposes.
One summer, either in the late 1940's or the early '50's, Steve was on his way to the mail box, and a terrific wind burst came up. As I recall, Dwight ran to get Steve, and he was all right. However, one of the giant (to us) cottonwood trees blew over, and we had fun climbing and playing with the now horizontal tree. I'm sorry to leave Judy's picture out, because somewhere I have a picture of her with her jubilant smie, sitting on the upper big part of the trunk, swinging her heels. All I've found so far are these two of Ann and Steve, still looking pretty pleased with themselves for having climbed such a huge tree.
9 comments:
How could I forget, the wind picked me up completely off the ground. I must have been really spoiled after my rescue cause to this day I still love a good wind storm. I had no idea that any pictures of the event existed.
That was a very frightening experience. Steve can't have been very old (I guess that means I wasn't either!)- I still have my pigtails in the photo, so this was before 1950. We sure had fun building hideouts in that old fallen tree. It was a sad day when Dad got it all cut up! The lilac hedge never did recover from where the tree came crashing through in that one spot. Great pictures and thoughts to share. Thank you.
Years later Dad and I took the tin ceiling squares from the old church house and nailed them on the roof of the loafing shed. I then painted them with a silver roof paint. We were very satisfied with our work, (we had no idea that the tiles would be worth a small ransom twenty years later). Then one afternoon as we stood and admired our work a monster wind storm came up and we took to cover. When it was over the entire roof, tin, sheathing and rafters lay across the fence by the road, past the distance of the cottonwood tree. The cows remained under the shed as though nothing happened.
Eliz: well written! And Steve, please go get those ceiling tins. I did not know about that story.
The wind really did know how to blow in Wyoming. I didn't know the story about the tin ceiling squares. IS that the wind that caused so much damage the year Paul and I got married?
Ann, I just noticed your skinny, scrawny legs. You were not up to par yet.
I like remembering that once upon a time my legs were skinny.
How did this deteriorate into Ann's skinny legs? They were leftovers from the winter she was so sick, right? We were all sort of skinny and scrawny growing up.
Deteriorate???? I was rather enjoying the memory of having skinny legs. Ok, back to the subject at hand, if we must.
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