A Shattering Experience

Yesterday I raced around on my ride around tractor mowing like crazy before the rain reappeared. Later, when I went into the house, I heard what sounded like something falling off the shelf in the back room. I didn't see anything and forgot about it. Much later, when I came in from doing chores, I heard it again when I shut the back door. Still saw nothing. Intrigued, I opened the door and shut it... hard... while watching the shelf where the sound seemed to be coming from.

What I saw was a big hole in the window over the ledge where glass had fallen in. The rest of the window was a lovely mosaic of glass crystals. It's really quite attractive how safety glass shatters when it's broken. And pretty amazing that I had not noticed the shattered window earlier.

I could not imagine what had caused the glass to shatter. Outside that window is a climbing rose and a bare-at-this-time-of-year bush (Fragrant Sumac). No bird could have gone through that tangle of branches to smack the window, which is what usually smacks our windows, though none have ever broken one.

It was late and I was tired, but we were expecting a major wind and rain storm so I knew I needed to do something or the back room would be a lake by morning. What I did, of course, was go wake up Johnny who had gone to bed long before. While waiting for him to come out and rescue the situation, I took all the junk off that ledge (finding seeds from last year I'd forgotten I had!) and cleaned up the glass left on the ledge. I didn't get around to sifting all the glass pieces out of the tub of clothes pins... But I did notice two small round holes in one area with lines radiating out from them... the impact site.

Johnny finally straggled out, said, "Pretty!" and went to find a piece of wood to cover the window. He remembered hearing a thud when I was mowing. I had not heard any thud (of course, I wear ear protectors so don't hear much of anything.) But we don't have rocks in our lawn. We have not found the guilty item that shattered the window, but I suppose it was my lawnmower that did it.

Looking on the bright side, I will now get rid of all the junk on that ledge that doesn't belong there. I have to go through everything anyway to find the little pieces of glass jewels, for that's what they look like. The shattered window was pretty... in a discouraging sort of way.