As some of you know, I live in the middle of the woods in the mountains of PA. No, not not like Bigfoot or the Jersey Devil but in an actual house. Anyway, I was walking the dog at 7:30 this morning and while coming back up the driveway I heard loud popping sounds in the backyard like someone was setting off firecrackers. I was wondering, who the heck is setting off firecrackers at 7:30AM? Anyway, after the popping sounds, I heard a huge crash, it was a tree. It fell at least 10 feet from the house and 6 inches from the bird feeder. Good thing I wasn’t refilling the feeder at the time. So, PSA, if you hear something that sounds like firecrackers in the middle of the woods, it is more than likely a tree falling so be careful. It did not sound like cracking, it sounded like firecrackers going off. A few trees fell in the yard before but I usually only hear the big crash when it falls but this time I heard the popping sounds first.
Was at one of our rendezvous events a few years back at a park. Nice day, no wind and as you say, heard popping and snapping and a very large part of one of the shade trees came crashing down. Luckily it barely missed a tent and the people were out walking around the event. Ever since then we always check out the trees above before we set up our camp. Wayne
Glad it didn’t hit your house. An Apple employee was killed by a falling branch last week. It’s no laughing matter. Where I live all of the houses have/had Bradford pear trees growing in the front yard. They grow amazingly fast and are excellent shade trees. My daughter used to read in ours.
Then one night during a storm half of it sheared off - thankfully the half facing away from the house. It will happen to every single one of them due to the “crotch” style of branches that emanate from the trunk. The neighborhood loses a few during every storm.
@namengr, Glad to hear no one was hurt. We have trees falling all the time in the yard and neighborhood but this was the first time I heard the popping. I usually just hear the crash when it hits the ground.
@18bravo, Thanks! I missed that story about the Apple employee. Sorry to hear!
Luckily your daughter wasn’t in the tree at the time it came down.
Back in 2021 we had a storm that broke some trees and uprooted others. These were all taken in the neighborhood on our street. My hard drive crashed a few months ago and I lost all my photos. These were recovered from Imgur.
These two photos are from the empty lot next to our house. That’s our house on the left in the second photo. The tree was heading directly to it but the other trees stopped it. It might not have hit the house but would have been very close.
She’s a feisty one, but she usually comes down during storms. She’s back at Beartooth right now camping out as part of her PhD research for the second year. Tough kid.
Congrats on your daughter going for her PhD.
Glad everyone is ok.
Ken
Thanks! Living in the woods you always have to watch your back. Not just for falling trees but also for snakes and bears.
This is only a garter snake which is non poisonous but we do have rattlers and copperheads.
This mother black bear and her cubs spent the whole summer in the backyard in 2017.
We get to see these beautiful birds though living in the middle of the woods.
Pileated Woodpecker
Red-headed Woodpecker
Baltimore Oriole
Great-crested Flycatcher
Cooper’s Hawk eating a Chipping Sparrow
Marbled Orb Weaver
And a buck resting in the yard
I’ve said before the necks are way redder up north. You deal with everything a Southern redneck does (‘cept maybe gators) but you also deal with fishing in frozen lakes, 12 foot snowdrifts, and the dreaded rutting elk.
I love how JoeBob down south thinks his four wheel drive will make him impervious to that light dusting snow that happens every ten years or so. When he blows by me, I just smile and think, see ya later, JoeBob. Maybe you can pull yourself out the ditch with your winch.
We have red necks. More than I thought would be in PA. They wear their hunting camo year round even to the supermarket. I call it the PA tuxedo.
Yes, we used to get a lot of snow but it hasn’t been that much the last few years.
This was if I remember correctly was from 2016. It was just over 3 feet. Yes, that dork is me. I just got done clearing the snow with the snow blower. No I am not 4 feet tall. The driveway is a sunken driveway. The height gets higher the further up the driveway you go. That area I am standing at, the ground is about 2 feet higher than the driveway.
This was from 2017 I think. Was up to 2 feet overnight. You can see the end of the driveway in this photo. The ground is maybe 6 feet higher than the driveway.
This gives an idea of where I live. This is at the end of the road.
This is from the top of the mountain.
My daughter has been incommunicado the past several days. Today she sent photos of where she’s been camping. Very austere to say the least. I believe they may be at over 10,000 ft. My only concern is that she might encounter a bear. I worry for the bear’s sake.
That’s a beautiful shot. Great she is getting out and enjoying nature.
Bears aren’t to be taken lightly. We have black bears that frequent our yard.
A baby climbing a tree right outside my window.
Another view from the top of the mountain but from a different side of the mountain.
four wheel drive does not mean four wheel stop.
Not a whole lot of progress on this one. I did manage to get it primed back in August. I then painted it in overall Tamiya NATO black and only needs masking off for the NATO green and brown next. I missed a few spots that I have to go back over but the side skirts were intentional as they will be covered with the BUSK armor.
Sorry I did not get to this earlier, but this is the “official” look for the bradleys brought up to the M2A2 ODS standard:
That is why I included the “notched blocks” in the set I offer. But what you did looks just as good.
As for Northern living, I live up in Minnesota’s Iron Range. We have lots of wildlife, minus the dangerous snakes, and LOTS of cold and snow. 
It seems to me those blocks are perfectly designed to support that elusive “maintenance” shelf.
@JacquesD thanks!
I only got your turret set and the sprocket set. I didn’t get the hull set but your blocks look way better than my scratch built attempt.
Minnesota I am sure gets a lot colder than my area of PA. In the winter, there were a couple times we got to -25F for about a week each time, it was brutal. We normally average in the teens though. Last winter we got into the negatives again but not as bad as -25 a few years ago.
AH, I thought you had gotten the upper hull set as well. All good.
Where I live in Minnesota we usually get at least a solid 2-3 weeks of -40F to -60F each winter, some years better than others. I remember the winter of 2013-14 when we had 6 weeks that the HIGH temp never broke 0F. We had frost in the ground over 10’ down in June 2014!
Your 3D printed products are top notch and well worth it but I am on a very limited budget so I can only get the stuff I really, really want/need.
WOW! I can’t imagine -40/-60 each winter. The -25 was extremely brutal for me. I would have never left the house but I had to walk the dog and clear the snow. Frost 10’ down is crazy. I would prefer somewhere warm year round but I am stuck in north east PA for the foreseeable future.
Glad you like the 3D printed stuff. I hate having to charge so much for what feels like so little, but postage and eBay fees really take a big bite even before I pay for resin etc… Hopefully things for me will stay the same and everyone’s income will go up. 
I really like living in Northern MN. it is the cold in winter that really keeps people away so it is not too crowded. I grew up in NW Minnesota where it is really flat but very windy. We had a blizzard come through in 1981 or so where, under the old wind chill scale, it was -104F. THAT was insanely fun to be out in (briefly). My eyelashes froze together in about 10 seconds! Winter was a pain when I was in the MN National Guard because we would often train at Camp Ripley in the middle of the state and so we had to run the vehicles every hour at night. We did shifts but still, it killed your sleep schedule…