I woke up to the heavy winds at 6am and watched from my bedroom window, the trees swaying and straining with the gusts of wind. As the eucalyptus tree bent a well over 45 degrees, I thought to myself how wood is such an incredibly well engineered material. Across the backyards, the big trees were taking the brunt of the winds across the backyards, calming them down, protecting us and the more vulnerable plants. Unfortunately on our Farm we don’t have big trees to protect our crops, but we are working on strategies for wind breaks over time.
As we came in this morning, we expected some damage from the storm. Last night, the probation team did an excellent job of securing our equipment and materials as much as possible to prevent damage. However nothing could prevent the plastic covering our big polytunnel ripping apart and we are now watching it helplessly flap in the wind. We’ll cut it off as soon as the wind has calmed down to prevent further damage – but at the moment it’s not safe to do so in the wind, especially with the surrounding power lines. Other than the polytunnel, there is some damage to our tractor shed – timber panels that have blown off, but nothing major. The damage is probably about £9,000 – running a Farm isn’t cheap.
