Friday, January 11, 2019

Report from Aspö

I'm back in London after a quick trip to our house. It's always odd to go to Aspö in the off season. Everything is so quiet and dark. Only five people (plus two dogs and a cat) were on our huge icebreaking boat out to the island.

There were a number of big trees down all over the path. Every tree fell over with a big plug of turf. Because of the topography of the island, trees grew on soil only a foot or two deep on top of solid rock. When the winds came, there were no deep roots to hold onto.

Claes told me that the storm winds were northerly, which was uncommon. This may explain why so many trees were lost, as they were pushed from an unusual direction. Sooz also has the theory of the summer's drought weakening the trees, which makes sense to me.

The island community is banding together tomorrow to clear the path. There will need to be a lot of hands to move the biggest trees.

I will certainly need help to take care of my two trees, they are larger than my saws and skills can handle. It will be Olle to the rescue in the spring! at least I have a project to keep me busy in May.

Most importantly, though, (besides the fact that nobody was hurt), our house and everything on the property are all just fine. That's a big relief.

I have made a photo gallery of my visit with lots of photos of the biggest tree damage.

More to come!

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