the calm

I'm sorry I've been out of touch. The power has been out since a storm Wednesday night, and just came back at noon today, Sunday. No power, no phone, no water. And just to make things interesting: no vehicle. My Highlander went onto the shop on Tuesday, and there it sits. I think the garage got their power back yesterday afternoon.

My road loses power with some regularity, so I had no idea how widespread and severe the damage was (see no phone, etc, above) until Friday, when my Occasional Helper came by as fortunately prearranged and gave me the bigger picture.

Bit of a storm.

So my power is back, which is a huge relief in regards to the freezer, which I have spent four days and nights practicing not worrying about. Long story short: I think the frozen food is okay! Having water again is rather nice, also. The contents of my little fridge were greatly reduced, but now the fridge itself is sparkly clean and extremely tidy, so let's enjoy that while it lasts.

On the down side, there is still a fallen tree pinning two power lines - from house to workshop and from workshop to stilt barn - at 52 inches from the ground. That is the height of the paddock fence the bole is now resting on. It's not a large-diameter tree, but is about 35 feet from root mass to crown, so it caught both lines before resting neatly on the fence. I checked with the power company about the safety of using power in the house while these lines are so compromised (even with that circuit switched off, of course) and was advised that I should treat it a a dangerous situation, stay away, and use no high-draw appliances until a National Grid tree person can get here. Which may not be for a couple of days (I'm guessing) so I ran down the list of my appliances and got the "okay" on the dishwasher which made me very happy indeed. It will probably take a couple of days just to get all the dishes washed.

I'll leave you with a couple of pictures taken the day before the storm.

We are having a stunning foliage season this year, and surprisingly, despite the storm, vast quantities of leaves are still on the trees today! Lots of leaves are on the ground, of course, and there are small branches everywhere, so the goats are enjoying an extended picnic.

This is my east view from the barnyard:

I sometimes forget to provide a sense of the size of the forests I keep showing you,

so here is the east view from my back door, with Adirondack chair for scale:

Now off to the barns.

With no power out there yet, I need to get the chores done while I can still see.

But I wanted to touch base after my latest post,

with a heartfelt thank you for all the kind thoughts.

Much appreciated.

~~~~~