My bottle tree reborn from a tornado

13 years ago

Hi ya'll - I just needed to share this with someone who would understand what a big deal it is. First of all, I live in an area of NC that was hit by killer tornadoes last Saturday. Our house is gutted on the inside but is fixable -there are many others who are not as blessed as we, whose homes are completely ruined and flattened, and their losses are certainly worse than my little personal ones. Some people have lost everything they had. When the storm hit my 15-year-old daughter & I were at home alone. My niece called frantically asking us if we were watching the news (we were not) and told us there was a big one headed our way. She kind of tends to be a drama queen, so...then we felt the house shaking. Instead of going straight in the closet my wonderful idiotic child goes outside & retrieves my gazing ball. When she came back in we felt the house start to rock from end to end, not side to side. It was over fairly quickly but it seemed like a very long time. It passed right over our house. We came out & started looking out windows after we took in the fact that there was water pouring down the walls in our kitchen & bathrooms. Every window we went to the devstation was worse. I was looking out one window at the site where my very beloved garden shed had been just a little while ago when I heard my girl screaming from the the kitchen - "Mama - your bottle tree"! I had just posted a pic of my tree on this forum a week or so ago. It's one of my prized posessions. Half of it was on the ground with bottles shattered all around it. That hit me hardest of all because it was so special and irreplaceable. In a few days,however, DH looked at it and said he thought it could be fixed. We did, too. We all dug a huge hole and "planted" my bottle tree. It just felt like a little something that had been rescued in spite of the storm taking so much of my garden. I have attached pictures of before, after, and after again. I didn't mean to be so long-winded - sorry for that but thanks for listening! (Oh -we also managed to pull up our willow tree, which was lying on one side, with the tractor, and to resurrect my brand new 6-feet-long sea serpent topiary which I had made from tomato cages, wire hangers, and electrical wire! Found an old chamber pot, also, while looking for stuff down in the woods)!

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Comments (7)

Marlene Kindred
13 years ago
WOW Gypsy!! You have been through so much...I saw the tornadoes on the news last week. I am so sorry that it did so much damage, both to your house and to everyone else's. I can totally understand how the little things can sometimes be what sends us into tears...much like when our beach camper and setup was destroyed by a hurricane two years ago....it was finding the small, treasured objects that meant the most. I am SO happy that your bottle tree was salvageable and your willow tree and sea serpent as well. Best of luck in making your repairs and again, I'm so glad you and your family weren't hurt! And God bless your baby girl for saving your gazing ball....she's a real trooper!
concretenprimroses
13 years ago
What a terrifying experience! I'm so glad that you and your dd are safe.
Wonderful that some of your garden art, and your bottle tree are saved.
Good luck and I hope that putting your home back together goes smoothly.

Kathy
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I really like the Collections bottle tree stand because of the shape. But its kind of flimsy and needs small bottles at the top. I think it will be fine "planted" tho. And can't beat the price on it. LOL. I still plan to make a blue bottle BUSH tho. I have some tall, slim bottles that wouldn't go on this tree. And I loved the shape of the ones I used on it. I was so lucky someone donated a bunch of them to GW one time, and it was half off day thank goodness. Plus I was lucky to find 3 little ones with the same shape. I've decided to move my 3 other cobalt totems to that center area and have it the "Cobalt Garden". Also the others are in my gnome garden right now and don't look right with the Teapot Garden going on there. sped, lots of people mistake whippets for greyhounds. They look almost identical except for the size. Whippets are about half as big. Feather is 20" at the shoulders and weighs 25 lbs, normal for a female. Males a little bigger. Here's a shot of how the old lady usually is...LOL
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good morning! if you put some apple cider vinegar on the bite right away, it neutralizes it. i know this works...this is what we use. i keep bottles handy so we can just pour it because you won't get one bite, it's probably going to be 10 or 50 even; there's been cases of 100's of bites. they can kill you. think of it as being bit by a wasp, and you have an allergic reaction. down in the south where people may have livestock pastured, you can see the fire ant mounds coming up as high as 2 feet off the ground. you should know that the nest itself could be 2-5 feet underground. so it's possible to step in one and sink up to your hips, and it happens to cows all the time. by the time you get free, you could be in real danger! during floods or rivers going over the flood stage, i've seen whole mounds floating by! they might be on a small branch, and 1,00's of ants are drowning to keep the queen and eggs safe and they'll house back down where ever the river drops them off. lol.....the contents? i threw it out! Here is a link that might be useful: bug bite remedies-natural and household
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Reminds me of an area up in the mountains that had a tornado around 1960. Came down one side of a canyon, through a picnic ground and dropped a tree on a highway worker sitting in his pickup, then across the canyon and up the other side which was completely forested. When I was a kid, I was always amazed at that area because the other side of the canyon was heavily forested except for this 1/4 mile path up the canyon walls which was completely devoid of living trees--they were mostly flat like a spilled box of toothpicks. Fast forwards a few eons and now the path of the storm is completely green and heavily forested with trees again, though probably not over 20 feet high (took 20 years after the storm for the baby trees to become visible). Both sides of it no longer have more than a handful of trees--they were all killed a few years ago by bark beetles, but the swath of young trees wasn't touched. It looks like a film negative of what I saw when I was a kid.
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laurastheme
13 years ago
I know how damaging those tornadoes can be. One of them blew half my home town away in 1955.
luna_llena_feliz
13 years ago
Scary! We very seldom have tornadoes in my area of Wisconsin. In fact, when the sirens go off, we go outside to see if we can see one! How crazy is that?

I'm so glad that it was only possessions that were taken from you in the storm and that you and your family are safe. I'm glad to hear some of your beautiful things are salvageable. I will keep you and your neighbors in my prayers.
nonacook
13 years ago
Wow-how scary is that!
glad you could re-do the bottletree.
Hope the repairs to yur home can be done quickly.
Prayers!
jeannespines
13 years ago
How scary! Thank goodness for that phone call!
Good news ...you & your DD are ok....& that your family is pulling tog to get back some "normalcy." You are blessed to all be tog!

Glad you salvaged your willow tree, too, besides your bottle tree...old & new beginnings to build on. Good thoughts & prayers coming your way, gypsy...hope things will go as smooth as possible.
Jeanne S.
sunnyca_gw
13 years ago
Glad something good came from such a scary situation! Glad your niece was so concerned about you & gave you few minutes to try to do something, altho I don't think DD should be holding glass balls when the house may blow away!! Spunky kid!!( She knew it meant a lot to you!)Supposed to get in bathtub & cover yourselves with pillows to keep from getting clobbered by things like "glazing balls"LOL. You were very lucky & have a great attitude about it.I see a lot of colleges send out their students to help with repairs of damaged houses around the country, think they learned a lot from Katrina. Hope your insurance will cover water damage & that you don't have to tear out sheetrock. I live in quake country & much prefer it to hurricanes & floods. Thanks for telling us. Praying for all the folks in U.S. going through so much trouble. DS said flooding in So. Dak. too. I remember just once but our house was up high. Dad took rowboat to neighbor & handed in groceries through her kitchen window. Can your garden shed be saved? Let us know how it is going! Jan

My bottle tree reborn from a tornado

Comments (7)

Marlene Kindred

concretenprimroses

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