Casualty

This oak tree came down in last Tuesday night's storm. It's in Riccarton Bush and the stream is the upper Avon River.

I usually bike through here to and from work but it was off limits last week. Now I know why.

The earthquakes caused substantial damage to the homes along with river here. I'm not sure but I wonder if the land damage weakened the soil structure around this tree.

As big and impressive as this is, on Sunday I saw much larger gum and pine trees uprooted or snapped in rural Canterbury. We really are fortunate the worst of the storm happened late in the day and at night. I imagine this would have made my eyes water it had hit me in the back of the head as I biked past.

The end of an era for my cell phone today. It fell out of my pocket and despite its neoprene cover, it didn't survive falling face down onto a hard bathroom floor :-(

Just waiting now to hear if the little mother-ship has gone home today.