Nature's Power

On Friday some major storms came stomping through our area of the world, and they've stayed with us for way too long! This storm came with very high winds and torrential rains. Some homes near rivers have had horrible flooding, from the several inches of rains and the new moon's high tides... I've never experienced flooding and I hope I never do.

We felt the winds, and I mean scary high winds - 60 mile per hour winds, winds that sounded like trains running through our house hour after hour. I was trying to distract myself by working on a mandala when the lights went out around 9 p.m., and we lost power. My husband and I wandered around lighting candles and waited. It had already gone an hour earlier, but come back after five minute or so. After an hour we realized this was the real deal, so we decided it was a good idea to start up the little generator we bought a few years earlier, after a summer of black outs. It allows us to plug in a couple extension cords for our refrigerator, the fish tank, a few lights, a heater for the bedroom, phone, and tomorrow we'll lead one across to the neighbors for their frig.

I was still lying awake at 3:30 a.m., listening to the roar when there was the sound of a crash and our house shook. I knew a tree had fallen, just not which one or how much damage may have occurred. We were very lucky - our neighbors home was not, though they themselves were.

One of the branches went through the daughter's bedroom, but she had recently had surgery for a hip injury and was recovering downstairs, thankfully. The pictures say it all...

neighbors house

looking down our driveway, between the houses

above our bedroom, where the tree landed...

It's 10:30 a.m., Monday morning and there's still no power. It's really cold in here! More than anything I miss warm water.