Canadian Gardening: I have froggies!, 1 by ginnylynn

ginnylynn wrote:
Your gopher sounds like a real hoot to watch Pam! We have a vole - probably more than one but this guy is a real character. He has tunnels and access holes here and there in the yard, and when he pops out and one of my cats notices him and runs to the hole he simply comes out another "door" and sits there watching them :-)

We also have a chipmunk who keeps a pretty low profile because of the cats. Last night we had a severe storm roll through suddenly. When I noticed all the birds going to roost and the clouds rolling in in fast-forward I could suddenly hear him squeaking out an alarm. I think there must have been a tornado fairly close by somewhere 'cause this came in fast! The sound of the wind was weird too - it was a kind of rushing sound, but not really the freight train sound you get when the tornado is right there - and the temperature dropped 10 degrees in about 45 seconds. The rain was horizontal - you couldn't see out the windows, but we only measured 2/10ths of an inch of precipitation over the 10 or 15 minutes it lasted.

Unfortunately the storm also took out one of my favourite trees - a young maple. It split it right down the centre and the broken half landed right on one of my new gardens (I'll get pics when I get home this evening). My chrysanthemum that everyone likes so much is right underneath it, and it was just starting to form flower buds :-( I can only hope that the smaller branches and leaves kept the main trunk up high enough that it didn't actually destroy the plants under it. The tree, unfortunately, will have to be taken down completely.

On the bright side, the tree completely missed both of the ponds, so the froggies should be safe and sound :-)

--Ginny