October 29th Dave Wrote

Sometimes I wonder where all my time goes, but summarizing things for a letter like this helps me realize how many things happened in the last two months. I've been almost too busy to enjoy the beautiful fall days such as the one we had Tuesday and the ones that are predicted for the rest of this week. I think our fall color peaked on Tuesday, about 2 weeks later than normal.

Probably the most memorable event of the past 8 weeks was having our next-door neighbor call me at work at 2:15 on Oct 15 to say that one of his trees had fallen onto our house roof. He had a black cherry tree that was about 15 inches in diameter and 75 ft tall that snapped off about 4 ft above ground (at a spot where the inside of the tree was pretty rotten). Gusts of 50-60 mph had been predicted for that day, and a sudden down-burst of wind must have hit our area because large limbs or tops were broken out of three other trees in the same area at exactly the same time that the tree fell on our house. The tree that fell was growing about 45 ft away from the point of impact, so it must have been well past the 45-degree angle of fall when it hit the edge of my roof. It made contact across the gable end near the ridge, but the branches were formed in such a way that most of the impact was absorbed by the second truss rather than the gable itself. We were able to get the tree off the roof that same afternoon, and I proceeded with repairs over the next several days. (Incidentally, I found that under NY law, my insurance pays for damage to my house even if it was my neighbor's tree that caused the damage. Since we have a $1,000 deductible in our policy, I decided to do the repair myself.)

The impact of the tree on the roof broke one roof truss and put several basket ball sized holes in the shingles and plywood near the ridge. The drywall in our bedroom ceiling was also cracked where the roof truss above it had moved, but the crack was small and pretty much disappeared when I fixed the truss. The trusses in our attic are formed in such a way that two roof rafters and two 2x4 angle braces meet at the ridge where they are sandwiched between two pieces of 3/8th in plywood. The plywood pieces measure 16-in from top to bottom and about 18 inches wide. In the process of repair, I found that each piece of plywood was held in place by 39 2-in galvanized nails. The impact of the falling tree shattered one piece of plywood vertically (i.e., the right half of the 16-in-high pentagon of plywood was 2-in lower than the left half). The plywood on the other side of the brace twisted enough to pull all of the nails about half-way out of the trusses. The 2x6 rafter shattered vertically at the edge of the plywood sandwich, but it then flexed enough between the ridge and the next brace so that it did not crack anywhere else along its length. I had to take a jack to the attic to get the truss back into position, then remove and replace the plywood, and finally remove shingles, replace one sheet of plywood roof decking, and then patch it all back together. That process accounted for about 25 hr of my spare time! The good news was that Carol was shopping when the tree fell. Otherwise, the noise might have caused heart failure.

I spent three long Saturdays during Sept. and early Oct. working on final landscaping (raking and seeding) at the back of our church property where a contractor had installed about 200 ft of 18-in culvert pipe to bury a seasonal stream that was a constant eyesore and management problem. Three Saturdays were required because we twice had torrential rains (bigger than anything in the previous 4 yr) that caused overflows of the pipe and eroded away the newly seeded grass. We had designed the system to handle overflows, but we needed the grass to be rooted before the first overflow occurred, and our season has not been cooperating.

Sara and Terence moved out of their apartment in Beacon at the end of Sept and moved in with us while they continue to work on remodeling the house that they bought in Newburgh. It's been fun having them with us, although we don't see much of them during the week. They leave at 6 AM to get Sara to the train station, and they never get back before 7:30 PM (or later if they stop to work on the house in the evening). Jordan has been splitting his time between his regular day care, time with his dad, and time going to SunBeam Nursery School with Carol. Terence interviewed for a job in NYC today. If he can land a job in the city, then he will commute and Sara will seek employment closer to home.

Nate still seems to be enjoying college (and hopefully is studying as well!). Matt is having a not-so-good year in SC. Living is an apartment is less fun than he had anticipated. He attempted to take two business math courses this term and has dropped both of them because his learning disability makes math almost impossible for him. Now he's contemplating a change in majors, but isn't certain what he wants to do. At the same time, a good friend of his (his girl friend from Feb-April of last year) had surgery for breast cancer last May and then found out several weeks ago that the cancer had spread to other organs. Matt was devastated. And last week his car blew a head gasket. Keep Matt in your prayers: he needs all the help he can get right now.

We finally have completed our apple harvest, but we still have lots of apples in our cooler that need to be evaluated before I can say that my summer work is finished. I have a lot of different meetings over the next several months, including 4 days in Ithaca, 2 days in Winchester VA, 2 days in Geneva, then 2 days in Manchester NH. In addition, Carol and I will be spending Nov. 6-9 in Nova Scotia. I know it's an odd time to visit Nova Scotia, but I have a meeting there on the 7th and 8th. Carol decided to go with me and we are taking some extra time to explore a bit of Nova Scotia. Neither of us have ever visited there before.

I suppose that I should add a few family memories to those listed by others, but maybe I'll save them for a time when I have less to write about and more time to recall memories. I hope that all of you are enjoying autumn. I drove through heavy snow flurries for about 30 minutes when I was driving back from a meeting in Burlington VT last Wed., so I guess that is fair warning that winter is on its way! I hope to buy a snow blower this weekend since my home-grown snow throwers have all moved out!