Cordwood

Posted on January 6, 2003 in Weather

The wind pushes encroaching storm systems well back from the California Coast, backing its energies with the warming air fresh off the slopes of the Peninsular and Transverse Ranges.

Near the entrance to our development, gardeners have piled several stumps fit to be split and chopped into cordwood. Last night, the dry storm blew down a hefty liquid amber. The mess was cleaned up by late morning when Lynn went out, but for a few hours, people were sealed in the complex by a wild pile of detritus. The air reeks of the sap of eucalyptuses, pines, and pepper trees which have died in this storm. At the lower elevations, thin saplings have parted from their stabilizing posts and lay flat across parking lots.

I have not checked the fate of the new forest at Concourse Park, but it would not surprise me if a few of those trees had cracked and splintered under the press of the wind.