If there are Ents, they are mourning the loss of so many trees. While there wasn’t too much damage around the house, a number of trees came down in the woods. One healthy tree looks like a giant twisted its trunk and ripped it in half.

Others had their tops twisted off.

Some weaker trees–made vulnerable after a previous storm had taken down their neighbors, thereby removing their protection–toppled over.

Still other trees were old, sick, or dead, and they came down in entirety or piecemeal.

Uncle Bob–a friend’s uncle from whom we rented a house when we first moved to RI, called weather related tree damage “nature’s pruning,” culling the sick or weak. And so I suppose it is. But like the Ents, we love the trees and feel they are somehow in our care, so we hate to see them wantonly destroyed. We will, however, make the best of their demise, cutting as many as possible for firewood; the rest will provide food for a variety of creatures as they decompose, enriching the soil so other trees will grow.