So on the morning of August 10, 2020, I took the first photo of four rockets I had just completed (Quest Tomahawk cruise missile, Semroc Astron, Start, and Geehod). The swing set in the background I had built for my daughter who insisted she was not too old for one (I think she was eleven at the time). The tree on the left is an ash that was on the parking strip between the street and the sidewalk (we live on a corner lot). This photo was taken about two hours before the Derecho storm hit.

Second photo shows where the ash tree ended up, on the swing set and on our roof. Third photo shows after some of the upper canopy was cut away and my attempt at keeping the lower limb from splitting and instantly dragging the rest of the tree across the side of the house. Fourth photo shows what the tree did to the side of the house. You can see the nice dent on the top of the swing set. In September I cut the old swing set apart to take it down.

The fifth photo shows the new old-fart style swing set I finished two weeks ago. The two gravity chairs came with a metal frame that was too flimsy in my opinion so I did a Tim Taylor number and built a bigger and heavier frame.

We lost 6 trees in the storm and only have one left, right were it provides us no usable shade. Waiting to have two new maples planted. We did have a pin oak before; all that I will say that our first fall in the house was " oh look, we got a sand pail full of acorns" and in 2019 I would fill a five gallon pail every two days with the d@mn things.

I built no rockets from August until this past April.

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"The Vixen" and I are sorry that you lost your trees. We can relate: we had (2) very shady ash trees and we lost them both to "The Scourge of Northern Illinois"--the emerald ash borer beetle. We've since replaced them with (2) beautiful "Autumn Blaze" maples and (1) Linden pear. that was 5 years ago and the maples are huge already. They grew very fast because I watered them every 2 days for the first two years with an in-ground watering spike.

As for your Tomahawk: if you would like to try to correct your decals I have some spare waterslides you can have. That model is one of the hardest rockets to lay decals on!

__________________
Never trust an atom. They make up everything.

4 out of 3 people struggle with math.

Chemically, alcohol IS a solution.

NAR# 94042
SAM# 0078

Thanks for the offer; I remember that it was a nightmare to put those on. I think I got the left side and the bottom a little bit better.

I did fly it a couple of times so now it has the usual flying field dirt and scratches on it so it is not worth the effort to fix it. Thanks though! You should build a clone of it. I have scans of the fins, boat tail, air scoop and decals.

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Thank you for the offer, but I have all that—plus at least one unopened kit.

__________________
Never trust an atom. They make up everything.

4 out of 3 people struggle with math.

Chemically, alcohol IS a solution.

NAR# 94042
SAM# 0078