Tuesday 2 March 2010

Not dead!

The yurt was flapping a bit the other night (probably something to do with the 140kph wind outside) and, at about three-something in the morning, Her Outdoors suggested I check the ropes on the roof-wheel cover. Which I did.

For some reason, I went to the front of the shack first, to check if the tiles were still on the roof (we dry laid these without any mortar - I was understandably curious). While I was there, shining the torch (US: Flashlight, not blowtorch) at the building there was a loud CRACK!

There was a lot of wind. It was pretty scary. I checked the ropes and went back to bed in the safety of the yurt.

The following morning, we saw this:


The loud CRACK was clearly my new compost bin breaking as a large ash was blown through it, coming to rest on the electricity cable that feeds the shack. If that cable wasn't there, there's a good chance I'd be dead right now. Which would have been both inconvenient and embarrassing (I wasn't even wearing any trousers).

(I did't know how dead I would have been until edf came and cut the tree down today. I chopped it up for firewood, thinking it would be as light as the dead chestnut I've been cutting recently - but when I picked the pieces up, it was surprisingly heavy. I would have hit me like a ton of tree.)

1 comment:

Charle Budd said...

I hope your underwear was clean anyway, it would have been awful to be killed with dirty pants on! I had a similar thing in S. Africa (not a close call though), working in the workshop on a windy day, heard a huge crack and a big branch of eucalyptus fell just short of our house. It took me about 8 hours with a bowsaw to chop most of it up (before my manager finally agreed I could borrow a chain saw!)