The North Wind doeth blow

 

View from my bedroom window

Storm Arwen tore through my wood on Friday night, and caused very significant damage.

There is no significant damage to the house; certainly nothing which compromises its integrity. The wind turbine is still standing and still working. The cattle shed is also undamaged.

A strip about 15 to 20 metres wide through the wood from the Summer Palace glade to the blow from three years ago has lost substantially all its trees: it is just utter chaos. This is about quarter to a third of the whole area in the wood, and includes some of the largest trees. The summer palace is entirely gone. The wreck is immediately behind the house and three trees fell on the house.

Around the area where the trees are all fallen, there are further trees which are still standing but unstable. What remains of the wood that's largely unaffected are

* A strip around five metres wide along the east side of the wood;
* A strip of at least 15 metres wide along the south edge of the wood;
* A more substantial area of at least thirty metres wide along the west edge, although this is affected by a much smaller blow in the south-west corner which happened five years ago.

The fallen trees are going to have to be hauled/winched out into Commons Meadow, which means I'm going to need a new 12 foot gate. But actually that fence is going to need work anyway, because one of the strainer posts was braced back to a tree in the wood, and consequently part of the fence is demolished.

There are more pictures here.