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!

LOTS going on!

I was going to start the new year with a post about my retirement, and our plans to move from London and become full summer residents on Aspö.

However that post will have to wait, because a giant storm roared through the archipelago on New Year's Eve, causing serious damage and power outages lasting nearly a week.

We found out from our neighbours Raymond and Eva (who are resident year-round) that two trees had fallen near our house, and they sent along these two photos:

The good news is that our house isn't damaged; both trees fell away from the house, which is a blessing. The bad news is these were the two lovely pines close to our deck, which provided a great deal of beauty and shade. It's a real loss.

Here's the before and after. The house is looking quite exposed right now.

Annika and Olle came by today and surveyed the damage. Thankfully their house was spared as well. There are a number of smaller trees down around us, and plenty of them down all around the island. We have a big clean up ahead of us!