Aftermath of Fiona's storm damage will be long-lasting, say Nova Scotia foresters, farmers

Woodlot owner Elbert Murrayhas seen lots of terrible storms in his 78 years, butnothing like post-tropical storm Fiona thatchurnedhis property in Pictou County, N.S., intoa massive,tangledmess.

"It's gone and I've lost a hundred years," said Murray, who predicts the forest will recover over the next century."Eventually it will come back to where it was."

Meanwhile, Murray says he won't be able to work his woodlot in Hodson this fall and winter because the damage is too extensive. So far he's only been able to look at the perimeter of his woodlots, butexpects the damage to be just as bad, if not worse, deeper in.

And the only way to go further into the woodlot is tocut his way through the damaged trees, buthe doesn't haveworkers to help him withajob thatcould take years to complete.

Murray says there are thousands and thousands of fallen trees that will be left to decay.

"It's in bad shape, really bad," he said. "The trees will rot in a year or two and then they're gone."

Making matters worse for Murray is the fact he lost two large barns on his property as did many other farmers in Pictou County whenhigh windsfrom Fionablew in fromnearby Northumberland Strait, levellingbuildings.

One of the barns heldall the heavy equipment he uses in the woodlot.Many of the barn'stimbers and crossbeams were milled from his own trees.Now they lay on the ground under twisted metal.

At Big Oak Farm in River John, the roof onthe barn housing Enid Schaller'scattle, sheep and hay blew off, leaving the animalstrapped inside the lower level byfallen wood.

"We went running over and we were so glad to see them all alive," said Schaller. "The only injury was one of our ewes had a limp."

Schaller says the steel roof of the barn was spread over the farm property.

She's going to leave800 square bales of hay from this summer's crop inside what's left of the barn even though they are now exposed and wet. Thebales will act as a buffer to keep rain and snow off the animalsin the lower leveluntilthe barn can be replaced, she says. But that also means she'll need to buy more hay for feed.

"We never thought in a million years we would lose that barn," said Schaller. "It had stood for 200 years through every storm and every hurricane and never moved an inch, but this one brought it down."

So when one of Schaller's cows gave birth to a calf this week, theynamed it Fiona.

Dozens of farms in the area suffered extensive damages and many of them are still without power.

"What I have right now is a feeling of dread, of what's going to happen this winter," said Schaller. "I feel so much pain for the older farmers here who are looking at their wreckage and trying to figure out what they are going to do."