I was woken by a cold nose on my arm.

A clearly desperate heeler.

Check my watch... three-thirty. In the AM.

Okay, okay. I'll let you out. As I pass the bedroom window I notice it is unusually bright out.

Snow. The back yard is whitened by snow.

Cool. So much for the predicted "down to seven-thousand feet".

As I open the front door I am surprised by a large mass blocking the sidewalk. A tree branch, laden with heavy white.

I turn to make way for the desperate heeler, and find there is no heeler. And there, peeking out the bedroom doorway, is a terrified little face with pointed ears.

"Go outside? Are you crazy?"

And then I hear it. A loud "ka-snaap!" followed by a rustling dull thud.

Ahhh. Tree branches breaking off. Big ones. Heavy wet snow falling on wet branches still covered with leaves. That's what has the heelers in a panic. They don't want a pee break. They want to escape to the basement. Two more large limbs break off somewhere closeby before I can snuggle back into bed with the wife. So I let her know it is snowing. And she too hears more branches crack.

"Is [youngest son] home?" she asks in a sleepy but worried voice.

Ummm, I don't know. Didn't occur to me to check. But since he went to Central City for the day, and wasn't home when I went to bed two hours ago, maybe I should check.

So back out the front door I go. And cannot see his parking spot on the street. There's a dark, amorphous mass there.

I trot barefoot down the slushy sidewalk.

Yep, he's home.

But his Grand Am is buried under at least four large branches from the southern elm.

As I come back out with the camera (wisely wearing boots), a branch directly overhead breaks off as I snap that second shot.

I run like heck.

Good thing, too.

Further inspection will have to wait for daylight.

There are huge limbs fallen all around the neighborhood, but the only place with a pile of branches is right here.

It's as if the south elm declared war on his car.

But clearing off the debris from two sides finds only a crumpled corner in the Pontiac.

Problem is, there is yet another huge branch standing on end on the roof of the car, its truncated stem resting against the tree high above our heads.

Move that, and there will very likely be damage to the car. If not the people doing the moving. I come up with a solution:

Clear the branches from the left and front, and drive the car out, hoping to beat the falling limb.

It being my idea, guess who youngest son hands the keys to when it comes time to do the driving.

Worked just fine.

And then it was off to check station.

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