Goodbye, Rita

This photo was the sky above my house last night around seven as seen from the front (west) side of my house.

This photo was taken a few minutes later from the back of my house (northeast corner) and shows the elderly pecan tree which was the source of my anxiety. You can see that's it's tall, but the photo does not show how truly huge the tree is. Its radius is probably 3-4 feet, and its height is 80-90 feet. It's a native pecan tree in an area called Pecan Grove, and it's probably one of the oldest trees in the area.

As most of you know, Rita made landfall at Camerone which is what I predicted a few days ago. So here where I live just southwest of Houston, we had only rain and wind. No damage except for small branches and a small to medium-size hackberry tree which split where the trunk forked. The broken part is lying across the fence and in the neighbor's back yard. Considering we have a multitude of trees, including the sickly hundred year old pecan, this is a miracle in itself.



I feel almost guilty in wanting a tee shirt that says "I survived Rita." With hurricanes, one person's relief is usually another person's misery. Bless those in east Texas and west Louisiana as well as poor old New Orleans who bore the brunt of Rita's force.

We'll start deconstructing the hurricane prep sometime later today. I won't even complain about all the work involved in preparing and in deconstructing. I'm just grateful.

Sling Words out.