Need To Find Out If Count Was Aerial Survey

Never Had Bad Vibes at the Lake---Until Today

With high heat indexes, yesterday's lunch on the shore of the lake was delightful. So, it seemed to me that doing a repeat today would be a wise move. After the pre-noon news cast, I packed the cooler much the same as yesterday but added a couple of items that I had forget to put in yesterday. Having said that, I made my way to the lake, going straight to the area where I had eaten lunch yesterday.
While sitting at the table looking out over the lake, I spotted my little friend, the red squirrel. He hangs out on top of a cluster of trash bins that are like a pre-sort of recycled items.

As I unpacked my lunch, the squirrel picked up on the smells coming from the picnic tote and positioned himself right at the end of the table where I was sitting  and did all sorts of things to get my attention. He would raise up on his haunches, then stand up on his hind legs more or less begging for a hand out.One of the items that I brought with me today was a round white corn chip. So, I held one up and ask him if he would like to have one? (I love talking to animals. They understand more than we give them credit) Tossing the chip to him, he grabbed it and ran up the side of the tree on the back side where I could not see where he went. Then, when I had my lunch laid out on the table where I could manage it and the wind and not have things blown away, I looked up at the tree. There sat the squirrel on a tree limb knot at about 10 feet up. It was a perfect perch for him to sit on and he was eating the chip like we humans eat corn on the cob. When he finished, he came back down from the tree and went to the end of the table. The little rascal was telling me that he wanted more. He took the second chip and returned back to his perch where he began to do his return carriage routine as he ate this second chip.

When the chips were gone and the tomato, cheese and pickle mix was also gone, I went to my sandwich. I noticed he was watching me and I told him that I didn't have any more. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him scamper off toward the lake's  edge.

As I worked on my sandwich and drink, I got this eerie feeling. It came out of no where but it sent a chill running up my shoulders and neck.  I turned around to look toward my car and at that very moment, I looked down and there were five squirrels across the ground at the back of the table. They had that ''look'' like you see in the movies of animals getting even.

Now, I'm begging to the squirrels---I'll bring more tomorrow!!  I finished my sandwich and took the picnic bag to the car. In my tote with my camera bag, I always carry about 10 saltine crackers in a little container and three sandwich duplex cookies for my afternoon snack. I took the container and went back to the table. While the squirrels were still hanging out, I took out a cracker and broke it into four piece and tossed them to the squirrels that were stretched out on the ground--a belly flop on the cool ground would be more accurate. They all ran to grab a piece of the handout. Three took off running with their little hand out and I didn't see them again, but the original little buddy and one of his friends hung around and wanted more. My friend wanted a whole cracker. The little devil held out until I gave him one, then he returned up the tree to his little balcony and worked on that cracker.

All-in-all, the band that came from no where and just gave me dirty looks until I noticed them had vanished with their hand out did give me those bad vibes, never thinking that they would come from a pack of squirrels. It was almost like a story board.
So--for the rest of the summer---if I pack more lunches--- which I will---I'll make sure that I have white oval corn chips and saltine crackers to give to the pack.

There's that Look.He was in stalk mode

This one, too, was in stalk mode.

This is my buddy that always greets me looking for a hand out but also is a dumpster diver with great skills.

My Trips To The Lake Daily Have Been Validated

Yep! Spending two to three hours a day out in nature has now been validated as a healty exercise that reduces blood pressure, keeps aging in a slower pace and prevents some of the common pains   altogether that comes with age progression.

Yesterday, with the heat indexes at 108 and the air temp at 95 with humidity and dew points through the roof, I packed the cooler with lunch and a snack and headed toward the lake. I have found a perfect picnic table that reminds me why I have always liked lake houses and beach houses. While eating my lunch, there was a cool breeze blowing across the area coming in off the lake. It was delightful and I ate my lunch in a comfortable ambient temperature. Summer doesn't start until today but the last weeks of June always rings the door bell of summer early here in Texas. 

By 1:30 I had pointed the car toward home and spent the rest of the day (the most unbearable part) in the cool of air conditioning. Australians survive the heat by closing up the house during the day and opening it wide in the evening. Now that a sample of what summer feels like again, I go out early and come in early. Come on September!!

The developing storms in the afternoon developed as advertised. They went north of us and south of us. The city of Greenville, north east of the metroplex got hit hard with wind damage and heavy rain leaning toward 4-inches as the storms trained over the same area for hours. Then, during the evening around sunset, a few developing storms grazed the Metroplex in the sector where I live. However, there was not as much lightening, nor strong winds and the rain was gentle and still wet. My trees are growing at an alarming rate where I am going to have to give them away to someone who needs a tree are cut the back to where they become a bush rather than a tree. I don't want to do that to my trees.They have reduced that direct sun heating of brick that sends the thermometer to the 120 mark. That is the main reason why I have trees in pots on the porch. Now, my neighbor has the same.

My view during lunch

Piles of wood chips from all the damage to such majestic trees

Pile after pile of these wood chips look like ant hills

Piles of Wood Chips Are Like Ant Hills

After some headway to remove all the down branches and massive hundred-year old oaks and cottonwoods that were felled by the storm on June 9th, the landscape is now more open and forever changed. What is the noticeable difference at first is the mounds of wood chips left from branches and limbs and broken branches that were left handing from some of the trees up top. That twisting where trunks were splintered and broken off completely started at about 30 feet. Never-the-less, the parks and recreation crew have done an amazing job with clean up and the park is beginning to return to normal less about 60 big majestic trees that are still around in sawdust and wood chips. Life goes on!

The National Weather Service did investigate a possible fourth location to determine if there was only straight line winds or a tornado that caused damage. And---the results were determined that indeed, a fourth tornado had touched down. Of course the difference between a funnel cloud and a tornado is  the point at which that funnel cloud in the air does, in fact, touch ground, thus making it a tornado and no longer just a funnel cloud.

And---as I still say from compass headings of tree stumps ranging from 060 to 330 degrees at the park, that a EF0 tornado could have caused some of the damage in the Old Lake Highlands, Casa Linda and Lakewood areas. I am not a weatherman, nor do I hold out to be one, but I have been raised to watch, observe and learn what weather can teach you. I would hate to tell you how many times growing up when I was pulled out of bed during the night and loaded into the car as we raced five miles to my grandfathers farm where he had a massive storm cellar. Mom was afraid of storms having lived through a couple of tornadoes herself.

I was away at college the last time she narrowly missed a Palm Sunday tornado when we lived in the  Great Lakes area. That tornado missed our house by a margin of two city blocks. Later, the duplex I lived out of school had been on that same path of the storm, I could still find shards of glass and tile stuck in some of the rafters of that house's attic 5 years later. That duplex was only a mile from mom and dad's house that was missed in that Palm Sunday tornado.  By-the-way, that same storm did hit the house of our local CBS-TV weatherman who lived on the street two blocks from mom and dad's.

The point is---you learn about weather. It can save your life. You never take weather for granted.

Swallowtail Butterfly on Dill

Beauty on the wing

Great White Egret Fishing in a Reed Bed

This Sunday Was Repeat Of Last Sunday

Right down to another crane incident to wind damage and three tornadoes confirmed in the Metroplex, Oncor was back in the "restoring power to 30,000 customers business". One thing that I have noticed this year is that weather seems to be in a cycle of short waves right down to the day each week. There was also flooding and some of that flooding blocked removal of the down trees from last week. The good side of this if there can be a good side, is that the flooding wasn't as bad as last week and the damage was not good, but it was not as concentrated as last weeks, either.

The down is from the storm last Sunday. The water is from the storms of this Sunday.

The new Ranger Baseball Stadium, the one with the open/close roof, is in place as far as the main steel work structure for that movable roof. Two miles to the right of this image there was a tornado that hit Arlington yesterday, Sunday. 

 

This wild turkey, who seemed pretty domesticated for a wild turkey,  came out of a wooded area along a roadway. As I passed I could not believe what I was seeing so I turned around and came back. He was even more close to the roadway now than when I first had seen him. I love to find these off-the-wall things like this. I see a lot of stuff like this.

Here It Is The End Of The First Week Since Devistation Struck

and while signs of progress have been made and are still being made, what stuck me was the  now browning of leaves and small branches by the hundreds of thousands still every where in sight. The staging area at Lake Highlands High School has returned to normal with so signs of all the stacks of utility poles, flat bed trailers of transformers, pallets of wire, dumpsters marked scrap metal while others were marked trash.The mobile command center Oncor set up is gone now, as are all the trucks loaded with utility workers from 11 states that came to help. Parks and Recreation Crews are still cleaning up the trees that were lost to the storm. The gaping holes in the canopies where hundred year old trees stood only a week ago are more than just noticeable, they are painful memories of what once filled those vacant openings. As of Friday, the total count of felled trees stood at 62. Damage to tops and upper limbs run well into multiple hundreds. In the deep woods of White Rock Creek  to the west of Goforth going north to the curve of the northeast service center where are near a dozen more that were not counted, although three at Flag Pole Hill were included.

Landscape crews, both park and recreation and private landscape companies will be cleaning up for not weeks but months to come. My interest has begun to shift to the summer rains and what will flow into the lake yet to come. There will be problems on to that end I am almost sure.

Flag Pole Hill

Yesterday, I got my first look at the crane that collapsed onto the Elan on Live Oak Street. It is being reported that the crane will remain where it is for at least another week. The ones that were displaced and put in hotels by the owner of the Elan City Lights Apartments, Greystar

Flag Pole Hill Across street from first image.

Crane that fell during storm on Sunday,June 9th and took a life of a resident. It will remain here for at least another week. 

Greystar, ended their paying of hotel bills yesterday. Later next week, it is being reported that the cars in the multi-level parking garage will start to be lifted out from the top down beginning sometime during the coming week.

Third Set of Images from Storms

Electric Contractors from Alabama Help Oncor with power restoration.

More out-of-town contractors assist Oncor with getting the power back on.

Two more big trees lost that I missed totally. Also,found 4 more in areas that are able to be seen but cannot get close because they are on private property on the back side of homes. And, in the dense forest along White Rock Creek there are those four. That brings the total to over 50 trees down with

The number of out-of-town utility contractors are seen staged everywhere. Today, I was only mile from home when I ran across a group of guys from Sumter,South Carolina. The guys that I talked to work for the South Carolina  contractor but they were from Alabama. Alabama Power has many crews here and the 350,000 without power is now down to less than 20,000.

The park crews are making their mark on the cleanup, too. It is amazing what these guys do for the park. This year, thus far, they have had three flood clean ups on the shoreline and trails, put the carnage from this storm. For one, I know that I appreciate what they do for the park and they like for people to tell them how much they are appreciated as well as any one does. I thanked three guys today for their work.

Second group of images from Storm Damage

A Thank You Picture to these Pearl River guys from B&B in Brandon, Mississippi

Electrical Transformers Await Installation at staging area in the parking lot at Lake Highlands High School.

More supplies with another out-of-state utilities that came to help Oncor.

Two Years Ago When A Storm Blew Trough---

24 majestic and old-growth trees that had stood watch over White Rock Lake for more than 100-years

More Homes Had Trees On Them and I'm not talking about one or two

were lost to the storm and even today, they are missed  where they once stood watch.

Sunday, a powerful outflow boundary came racing across the metroplex ahead of a cold front that meet up with high humidity and dew points that had pushed the temperatures into the 90s.F. As the winds came some were recorded officially at 63 MPH, but in some places, those winds were more strong than the 63 MPH. When the winds moved past the Metroplex, the carnage of its rage was a
complete devastation.

Monday stated out with over 300,000 customers of Oncor, the delivery system for the electric utility parent, TXU Energy, without power. Quickly, the news reports came in that the storm had claimed one life when a Tower construction crane fell into a new occupied apartment building rendering the building unsafe to live in and residents were evacuated. Now, in the third day following the storm, the damage at first hand makes the storm of two years ago seem like nothing at all.

My first look at the damage left me speechless. I could not find words that could relay what I was feeling into words.  The sight of what I had seem had to be absorbed, whole streets reduced to pathways. I have a love for the lake that goes back many years. The giants of the forest have long held me captive and I am not what some would call a "tree hugger". Far from it, indeed.

While I had survived the initial power outage, my power went out abruptly last night just as I was set to listen to the symphony. It had been a long and stressful day and I wanted to relax. That, didn't happen. About 1:30 a.m. this morning, without lights, air conditioning, not even a fan, I slept until 4:30 a.m.when I  got up, dressed and headed for the car. The park portion of the lake opens at 5 a.m. and having stopped at McDonald's for coffee and some breakfast food,  I started the first trip around the lake when  I didn't have to worry about traffic and started  the first stage of an in depth look at the damage of the big majestic that were laid out broken with me hurting at the loss.

Two years ago, I had counted and recounted the loss in the big majestic. That count was at 24. Already this morning it was at 32 with more to come. I headed toward home arriving home just 15 minutes after my power had been restored.  I went to bed and slept a solid 4 hours. Once again, I dressed, packed my camera case and snack tote and headed out to find the caravan of linemen that were arriving in Dallas to help Oncor restore power.

There were crews from Texarkana, TX., Brandon, Mississippi, one group from Alabama and several other smaller utility contractors.The crews were bringing back the power as they worked.  Other crews were sawing the big massive trunks into pieces that were being loaded onto tucks. The Oncor staging area in the parking lot below the towering press box of Lake Highlands High School where it was like a military precision run operation. During the afternoon search for trees that I had missed, turned up more than I had expected making this storm, the worse that I have seen in the past 20 years at the lake. I have 331 images from the first round and 53 more on the second run. These images were only of trees that showed that recognizable tell-tail sign of bright new wood showing, full trees uprooted, old growth that had stripped half the trunk size into two pieces, trees that fell on houses, cars, buildings such as the boat house or office building along a major roadway that surrounds the lake borders.

Since I can only display three images in each post, it would be nearly impossible to show all the images. Some are professional quality while others are for archival record which means that they are

Dreyfuss  Club Picnic Area

The Boat House at White Rock Lake, c.1930s and a Giant cottonwood 

excellent at a smaller size but will not blow up beyond 50 percent. So, I will start with the three most powerful images and then do a couple more post.

There are trees that I miss not being there like we miss loved ones in our lives that are now gone so this really is a spiritual exercise for me. I had a longtime LH resident tell me today, "Thanks for what you are doing". That is what drives me more than anything. It meant something to her and that is good enough for me.



Corrections on 6/12/19 to omitted text because of previous updates prior to publishing.

Mother Nature Still In Control

A high meadow planted in wildflowers that have bloomed for a couple of weeks now, had another surprise as these peony poppy like plants have come up through the bed of prairie grasses that were cut in the fall and were bedded down over winter after being  sown with wildflowers.

The point is this: one must visit the meadow three or four times a week as plants come up almost over night with the warming temperatures and the large amount of rain that we have had this year already. The flowers are stunning and coming into the last phase of such beauty.The view changes as more species come up and bloom.

For a better look at the beauty, you can click on the image and it will open up at a higher percentage for viewing. See the total beauty of these wildflowers that nature held back until the very end of her spring run.

Finding All Kinds of New Blooms In Wildflower Seedings

It has been amazing to discover all the new species  of  wildflowers that were sown this year at and around the lake. Yesterday, I discovered a cousin of a common weed, Thistle.Today, I found new blooms that seemed to have grown almost over night. These, were cousins of the peony poppy that were so stunning at the Water Filtration Building. Since seeing those, I have seen not only more of the pink but also have seen them in the purple that is almost like the thistle in color. However, unlike the so many other things, there is a big difference when seeing them up close.

These are much like the peony poppy.

This is more like the common thistle

I

This little guy hangs out here. I first found him last season on a different bush. He seems to like this one better because he has a great viewing