North Wind Fells Cyprus

A cold north wind blew all day yesterday (see poem below) but Chris and I still got the cypress damaged by high winds a couple of weeks ago cleaned up.  It had a secondary trunk and that split off to reveal significant decay.  The tree hadn’t shown any outward signs of it but it was obvious why the wind was able to take it down.  Sometimes I feel like I’m presiding over the slow demise of SA from what Arthur and Montye had built up.

 

ICS held their annual meeting last week so I made my yearly trip to Connecticut.  The weather was pleasant by New England in January standards while I was there.  Most of us ICSers are getting long of tooth.  They joke that they might have to hire a staff nurse.  We keep plugging along, though.  We spent quite a bit of time learning how organizations use social media to market their wares.  Needless to say, the genre doesn’t have much appeal for most of us so we’ll have to force ourselves to embrace it.

 

Rain was forecast for Thursday night and we did get a sprinkle, but that was all.  I have to keep reminding myself that droughts are just part of this area.  I suppose people in areas prone to flooding have to remind themselves that floods are to be expected.  I would rather have a drought than a flood.  I was reading in Panhandle Pilgrimage how investors from the east and England started ranches in the Texas Panhandle in the 1880s and were thwarted by the weather, including droughts.  Long term, homo saps won’t be able to inhabit this area like many others to the extent they do and in the style they do because there won’t be enough water.  Maybe some new techniques and technology will come along to help them thrive on much less water.