July was not the month I expected it to be. I had plans for July—writing plans. Silly, silly me. The Universe obviously had other plans for me. The East Coast got hit by a weird storm—predicted to be a typical “summer thunder storm”, instead, we got slammed by something they refer to as a “land hurricane”. (I’m a bit of a severe weather junkie, and had never heard the term derecho before.)

Where I live, we got spookily high winds and a bunch of rain. My mom, who is in her mid-80s, had three huge trees come down in her yard. We got lucky. Really lucky. No injuries and minimal damage to the house. However, she was days without power and the whole family has been dealing with insurance guys and contractors. For weeks. Best quote was from one of the tree guys when they brought the crane (yes, I said crane) in to remove debris. “You know, there’s no rational reason for three trees falling down at the same time to fall in three different directions. One of these houses should be crushed.”

Over a hundred-thousand pounds of tree trunk later, it is ‘suddenly’ August. My writers’ group starts up again with the new year of meetings in September, and I’m on the board now. School is about to start again for the kids, and they need stuff. The annual cycle continues.

The V of trees–one front, one back.

One-third of the 100-foot tree, cutting through Mom’s front yard.