keeping an eye on things

until the trees come off and their many tons of additional load on the cottage is shed, things will remain dicey.  have been over there a few times already this night and so far things don't seem to have gotten any worse. 

it is surprising how comforting it can be to check the status of network accessible devices in the cottage: a simple telnet response is the equivalent of a canary's chirp down in a dark coal mine. 

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[edit] the porch cam doesn't point in the direction of the fallen trees, nor does it work in the dark.  but if any motion is detected within its field of view a fresh image is uploaded and for once I can be grateful to squirrels for scurrying across the porch. 

damage pictures

these images were taken shortly after the trees came down. 

(click through these thumbnails for higher resolution images)

from N


from NE


from E


from W

more later ...

more damage details

though I had gone over periodically through the night to check on things, morning brought a better perspective, helped in large part by the arrival of the tree service proprietor.  his many years of experience in dealing with this sort of situation give weight to his professional opinion and what he had to say was quite reassuring (even so, I'm still not going in there any more than absolutely necessary until that weight is off the structure and the damage assessment can get underway). 

Meg, who I hadn't seen since the trees came down, turned up - about 50 ft in the air, directly over the neighbouring cottage's roofline.  she had walked up the slope of the fallen oak to check things out.  she's still pretty jumpy and for once I can at least match her skittishness. 

a tree crew will come tomorrow (Monday) morning with a large crane.  untangling the tree mess from two cottages looks to me like it will be an all-day task. 

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the more I've looked at things the more I've marveled at how much worse things could have been.  the tulip poplar, undoubtedly having saved both cottages by taking the first impact of the larger oak falling it, exhibits a striking pattern of how its trunk has split:

(click through this thumbnail for higher resolution image)

split detail

still at risk

over the course of the day the tulip poplar's cracking and splitting has continued to increase.  I am more concerned than ever about this development, given the delicate balance of masses and forces involved among the two trees, the cottage and the high oak branch in the 3^rd yard over by which the top of the oak is partially supported. 

the crews and the crane can't come any sooner than tomorrow morning and even then it will take them some time to consider approaches and get their equipment and crews in place.  things will either hold on that long or they won't, there's nothing that can be done about it. 
except to worry.