Good Night Irene

A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease. ~ John Muir

More appropriately it was a few hours ago every tree was excited.  Irene hit us with less rainfall than expected by half but the winds made up for it.  The flooding that did occur has now crested and the river levels are slowly starting to drop. 

In my county 2264 homes have had their electric restored, 11440 people are still without. Other counties are in a similar situation.

The electric company originally said it would be back on by 10 PM last night.  They have since updated that to 4:30 today.  One reason for our outage is this….

Two poles broken off at ground level will need to be replaced.  However, there are bigger problems further out from this.

After every storm the sun will smile; for every problem there is a solution, and the soul's indefeasible duty is to be of good cheer. ~ William R. Alger

I am lucky as I have a generator.  It doesn’t power the whole house and well but is does keep my fridge and freezers in good shape with some energy left to power the computer.  We plugged the tv and cable box in but there is no cable so if the kids get too bored they will have to watch a Netflix movie.

We stored some water and can easily make trips to the artesian well to fill up jugs.  The percolator coffee pot smells fantastic while brewing and makes a great cup of coffee.  The man likes his coffee as soon as he rolls out of bed which is why we switched to the programmable drip pot but I think once it bites the dust we won’t buy another.  We had friends for dinner.  She supplied the one thing I forgot…paper plates!

We walked outside after dark and it was like the sky was trying to make up for our lack of power by adding extra stars.  Then this morning, it was 50 degrees with a slight breeze, absolutely beautiful !  Of course human nature will make me much less agreeable in four days if the electric doesn't go back on!  Hope everyone came through okay.