Wind

My sister Rhoda, her two boys, and my parents left this morning after a week visit with us. My parents stayed with my sister Laura who now lives (permanently) in Highland. I always love the busyness of company. We spent so much time together that when the company leaves, I feel empty and lonely (even though I have the 5 people of 2 puppies around).

My dad completely reconstructed our Rainbow play structure that had been a little twisted in a storm last Sept. Highland should really be Highwind. We had become used to the wind…so we thought…after a summer of off and on wind through just the surrounding small towns. It’s not windy north of us or farther south. I often think back to a conversation with a friend in Santa Rosa who said, “You’re moving to Highland??? It’s really windy there!!” I grew up in Fairfield and it was windy…so I just suspected it was a similar wind…the kind that freshens things up a bit. We should have known when we saw the home builder’s ragged, frayed flag on the pole outside the model home. The sales agent said, “It’s not really windy…it’s a seasonal wind.” What is seasonal??? Regular, frequent, a Monday, Wednesday, Friday kind of wind? We haven’t documented the frequency…but it is regular. When you wake up you just never know…is it a ponytail day? A barbeque day? (no bbq’s when it’s windy) We were fortunate to get our trampoline in the ground before a ‘wind’ day. The neighbors tramp blew away, end over end, almost into another neighbor’s front window. The next wind day, even with some anchoring…the tramp blew away and just broke apart.

We put in our lawn a lot earlier than we thought we would, hoping to keep the dust down. On another wind day, I tried to calculate the mulch that blew away. From what remained in our yard, I figured $1000 worth of dirt blew away that day. So..back to the play structure. It may just stand longer than our home. My dad used wheel barrow loads full of cement and many many anchoring screws, and wood. I’m sharing this because I am so happy about it. Everyone said just ditch the wood and go to metal in this area. I have memories of the kids and play dates, popsicles, bunnies, bumblebees, forts, etc. that I don’t want to ‘ditch’. I am grateful for my dad…it would have taken us much longer to navigate though that repair.