DAY 164
09.15.07
TREE 80 & 81
I woke up to a cool morning. The summer heat has suddenly left and my body isn’t prepared for it. I walked down the stone path by the white water tower chilled even with a long sleeve shirt. I walked fast to warm up and to get to the tree quicker. I knew once I started to climb I wouldn’t be cold any longer. I walked up to St. Anne’s prayer shelter and reread my journal from April 30th. It was cool back then. It has been amazing to climb everyday through all this changing weather and really have a record of how each day has been in the photographs of this project. After reading I walked just to the right of the shelter to where my two trees were waiting. The field had recently been cut so at least I didn’t have to deal with landing in high weeds or all the bugs that come with it. I sized up the small tree and realized that with the bumps and knots on the skinny trunk I wouldn’t have to shimmy up like a koala like I had done the first time. My abilities have increased enough to make climbs like this easier. So I was quickly up this small tree with carefully spaced foot holds on those little bumps. Then into the little branches. I got up to the level of the big branch on the big tree and positioned myself to step back and transfer my weight to the next tree. I grabbed the large trunk and shifted my weight from my left to my right. 
Up on this branch I looked for a path up hoping that maybe I would find one this time, but did not. Too many dead limbs. So I prepared myself for the climbed down this arching branch. 
I took some pictures and in the process my battery died. 
Frustrated, I shoved it back in my pocket. There nothing I could do… I just let it go ready to concentrate on the difficult pass. I sat on the branch and scooted on my butt to the next branch. I returned to my feet but remained in a low crouch. I lowered myself down the sloping branch and secured my hands for the long reach with my shoe to the next limb. This was a struggle to do and failed three different tries. I just couldn’t figure out how to get my body past these dead limbs that stuck out in my way. I decided to kick and break one part off. This made it so that I could work my way down but I was frustrated that I couldn’t remember how I had done it the first time without breaking it. From this point I got to a nice seat where I had tied my ribbon. 
And then I realized I could use my phone to take some pictures. 
After that I rotated my body to climb down the almost vertical limb. My feet barely held on the tiny offshoot limbs as I held most of my weight with my arms. But I worked down slowly impressed how the limb hadn’t even begun to crack. I dropped and was safe in the ground. A fun climb but frustrating.
9-18-08: I took more pictures that day with my cell phone but I can’t send them to my PIXplace online since the file is too large. Please tell me why a phone would allow a image size that is too big to send over the phone? WTF is the point? Luckily I realized this on the branch and lowered the pic size before all was lost.
Also, I feel that I should clarify about the prayer hit. On April 30th of 2007 a stumbled upon this hut and inside was a wooden box. Within the box is a little pad with a pen and all sorts of little notes from others who have found the hut. On that day in April I wrote a note discussing my appreciation of my residence experience at the Mary Anderson Center. That is what I reread that day, September 15th, 2007. Sorry if the structure of this blog is so confusing. If you’ve been following along and wondering what the hell is going on, please read my introduction and the first entry of Part 2: the Reclimb.
So! Sunday, September 14th 2008… a day to remember here in the Louisville area. I knew on Saturday that Ike in some form was heading in this direction. The meteorologists were predicting rain and wind between 30-40 mph at about mid afternoon. So around 11 am I figured I should get my tree climb out of the way before the rain came. I have to install my cicada bodies soon in sycamore tree using my harness so I figured I’d get practice by climbing my parents sycamore in their front yard. I suited up, got my rope situated and began to climb up. I got entangled in a low limb and my camera, which was hanging from my belt got so tied up the strap brake and it fell 15 or so feet to the bush below. I really wanted to take pictures up in this tree… but wait! Just like last year in the climb above I realized I had my cell phone and could use that. All was not lost. But I still wanted some good shots and figured since my mom and dad were home they could take some… as long as my camera still worked. So I called my mom from my phone and she came out to take a few pics. They were about to leave for church so she only took a few before they left. 
(Like my hard hat?) I thought she did a good job creating a progression of my steps onto that first limb. Then wind was stronger than normal but not the worst I’ve seen. I wasn’t worried but my mom sure was. Before they drove away she asked how high I was planning to go. I told her that I didn’t plan on going much past this low limb. Sorry mom but, I lied. I unhooked the roped from my harness and then free climbed the rest of the way to almost the top of this tree. Easily putting me about 70+ feet above the ground. That is when I utilized my camera phone. 
Still a little tree left I couldn’t climb, or really feel comfortable climbing since this tree was really swaying in the strong breeze.
That is the roof of my parent’s house. Pretty high up.
The blue is my truck just below and the white rope is my buckstrap. So I didn’t climb free of gear completely. It is just a rope that hooks to my harness on the sides. I just hook it around a limb or the trunk so that if I slip and fall it catches me. Since I lied to my mom, I figured I should take some safety precautions.
Then satisfied and a little scared (but totally thrilled) by the increasing winds I decided to climb down. I reversed my steps back to my rope, hooked back in and then repelled down to the ground. When I found my camera I noticed that the lens glass had a nick in it. Possibly time for a new camera. Though it still works so maybe not.
So I went inside to cool off and change out of my climbing clothes and got on the computer. I could hear the wind outside getting stronger and figured the storm was on it’s way and decided to turn off the computer and unplug it. I went outside and that is when I saw this:
How did I not hear this fall? The computer room is literally 20 feet from this tree. I guess my music was too loud. Anyway… it made me realize this wind was getting strong. I went over to the garage where I had been working on my bodies (covering my tape casts with fiberglass and resin) and thought I should put my dad’s Camaro in the garage and close the garage door. A lot of leaves and twigs were starting to fall. As the door was coming down the power went out leaving the door halfway open. I walked out to the street and saw the reason for the power outage:
This is the house just across the street. Stupid powerlines. Then I started to walk down the street with my camera freaking out at all the huge trees swaying in the strong gusts of wind. I heard a loud CRACK! and saw a neighbor’s tree fall onto their house:
That is when I started to think I should be out here. The wind really began to pick up and all the huge trees looked as if they could go at any moment and there was no place I was safe. I ran back to the house but there was a lull in the wind so I made a video: (warning… explicit language)
As you can see (and if you can’t I’ll explain) this was getting incredibly intense. It was scary but so amazing. I obviously thrive on danger. What was so strange was that I have never seen such wind without a thunderstorm. It was just so sunny and nice out… I couldn’t make myself go inside. I tried to call my dad on his cell phone to tell him to go the back way and avoid the street since it was so littered with debris.
I went back out front and saw we had lost some limbs from our catalpa tree by the mail box. 
I cleared what I could from the driveway and a few large limbs from the road. Again, the gusts were incredibly strong and I was wondering when my parents were going to get home.
They finally did and my dad was pissed. He was worried I was going to forget to put his Camaro in the garage. He saw the trees in the back yard and besides the relief that the house wasn’t hit, I can’t imagine what he was thinking. With the wind still raging (at reported gusts of up to 75 mph) we drove out cars over to the new development where there were no trees to fall on them. As we walked back the wind was almost knocking us over. It was just so awesome to see. The destructive force of this storm has been incredible. To see images from what the hurricane did on the coast look at this link.
We waited inside as the winds continued to rage outside. Eventually they did subside and we went back outside to survey the damage. Another tree had fallen in the back right next to the others. All in all, including the trees that the fallen trees took out, my parents lost 5 trees and sustained minimal damage to a wooden fence and some serious damage to the tennis court fence.
My mom and I were both taking pictures. I took this one with her in to give you some perspective on the size of these trees. 
To give you another scary thought, these are some pictures I took early on after just the first tree fell. I am glad I wasn’t there when the others fell.
That beautiful maple tree just next to the fallen tree base was completely destroyed by the other tree. 
I liked that tree and climbed it 4 times. There is going to be a large hole in the backyard after everything is cleaned up.
Ike is definitely going to be a storm to remember. I was just so glad I climbed my tree before the bad winds started… that would have been bad… but incredibly awesome since that tree didn’t fall. It lost some limbs but none that I used to climb. Just imagine… holding on for dear life and 70mph winds at the top of a tree 70 feet above ground. A death wish for sure.