Storm A 'Comin! And A Goin'!

We are awaiting a Tropical Storm today (with a name that I seem unable to pronounce; maybe that's just as well as if you give things names, they gain power!). High winds, lots of rain (which we need!) and possible trees down, power outages etc etc- which we don't need! Last night we had an unexpected fore-taste of Isaias- sudden thunder, lightening, downpour and excitement out side the bedroom and then quiet. We were able to reopen the windows afterwards. This morning is drizzly but mostly quiet; the quiet before the storm.

And speaking of quite, check out my new piece, above: in this day and age if you're not paying attention or speaking out then you're part of the problem. Thank goddess that people ARE speaking out! And yes, I sewed around all of those little points...

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It is now a full 12 days later... where have we been??!?!

The electricity blinked off for a couple of minutes during the storm and then our Internet went down. I called Frontier (an altogether evil and ineffective company!) and received vague generalities as to "uncertain when Internet would e restored", "widespread problems" blah blah blah. I called and recalled Frontier (did I mention what a vile and totally useless company they are?); I must have phoned them up seven or eight times. Each time I encountered what could have been "humorous" had it not been so infuriating: they insisted that we only had a phone account through Frontier, not Internet- this with me staring at a screen that gave me the number to call to report problems with our FRONTIER Internet. Finally one semi-alert service representative figured that it was because our bills are not bundled and one is listed under Bob and the other is listed under Robert. With that cleared up, I was handed over to yet another representative who finally spewed some weird explanation about a cut wire on our road.highly technical explanation, that!

And I still have their inane and potentially mind-damaging muzak stuck in my head. I implored the last person I spoke to to please, please NOT put me on muzak; he demurred and said he couldn't do that. So I sat, and sat and sat... I finally hung up. (And need I mention that they requested a phone number in order to call us back should we be disconnected? This from the company that we have phone service with, which seems to suggest it's on the computer screen in front of them!??!? And did they call us back?!?!??!!? NO!!!) Have I suggested what a truly awful company Frontier is?!??!?

So later that morning, I called my riding instructor to just touch base. I mentioned that our Internet was till down. She was horrified and said, "Well, maybe try what my son does when our Internet is acting up. Just shut everything off and unplug the whole system. Let it sit for a few minutes and then re-boot it." I did just that and hey presto! My eighty year old riding instructor did what Frontier couldn't- she got our Internet back up and running!

So here we are, 12 days later and I have over 400 emails to delete in my inbox. Welcome to modern-day America!

A Little Tornado, Anyone?

Yes, just your average glance out the studio window to see how Mother Nature has arranged your yard and trees in a charming- and unexpected- manner! This is just the first picture and posting of many to come, that document how messed up life at the BobnRita Ranch are.
Fortunately, Bob and I and the Dog and Pony Show are all fine. Robin thinks the backyard disaster is sorta fun (lots of trees to jump over/climb on/root around under) but Maggie seems exhausted and still freaked out (she was outside during the storm and was lucky to not get crushed by falling trees! Her barn was spared but she didn't want to be inside.)
More later, but that'll get you started. Hint: this is no where near the worst of the damage. I can't even look at the rest of the pictures now. Our garden is somewhere under a pile of giant trees.

Will This Winter Never End?!

We were eating breakfast, happy to have survived the Stormageddeon or Snow-pocalypse or Bombacyclone Megawetsnowiliciousness, when the phone rang. Bob was informed that the steel delivery truck was at the end of the driveway but his steel couldn't be delivered because there was a tree down. Bob went out to investigate and returned to tell me that two trees were down, all carefully coated in heavy wet snow.

This is the other side. Equally blocked! The steel (unfortunately) took a return ride back to Bridgeport, to be delivered on another day and Bob went to work with the chain saw.

This is the other, smaller cherry tree that cracked. It's sort of too bad as this one had a decorative sweep over the driveway and Bob liked it. This one cleaned up quickly as it wasn't all choked with vines and snow like the above cedar tree.
We were busily sawing and lopping (I chopped up the entangled vines and hauled limbs away) when our neighbor Meghan made a guest appearance and went to work helping drag debris off the driveway. She's been a really good friend in times of need- like when we first moved in and had major ice dams on our roof, causing leaking and general havoc. She pitched right in and held the ladder and called her father, who worked for the utility company to find out what we should do. Meghan called her father again today (and he's in Arizona where it's 85 degrees...) to ask about a branch that is (still) hung up in a tree at the side of the driveway. He said be careful. We're not going to mess with that and will call the utility company.
In the meantime we- maybe surprisingly- still have power and I was able to drive out to the store after lunch. It was slushy but passable and the road were clear. Several people have mentioned that we may get another storm on Monday next week. Where is spring?!?!?

Timber!

It's never a dull moment! I was expecting to put up a posting about our recent trip to Vermont, but instead I'm blogging about several large trees that decided to take a nose dive in that storm last night. Driving back from Vermont was wet and a bit windy but when we arrived home, the weather picked up significantly. We even lost power for like three seconds- just enough to disrupt the clock on the stove, the computer etc. I heard that 150,000 homes lost power, so we were lucky!

This morning, I was washing the breakfast dishes when Bob came back in from outside and said, "Go look at the driveway..." I had images of our car or truck smashed to bits or my studio roof being burdened by giant branches. Amazingly, the trees that fell down did minimal damage. (Interestingly, they fell exactly where Bob was saying he was going to drop them as he was planning on cutting them down. Both were dead!) Well, no damage to cars or house but...

One of Bob's sculptures took a bit of a beating, but fortunately, it's nothing that can't be fixed. It really is pretty incredible that these trees fell, missing all of the Japanese maples and a large planter that is located there; the trees even missed the vegetable garden fence. It was like precision landing.
I am surprised that we didn't hear these trees fall, but the remnants of the tropical storm- intense rain, really strong wind- probably masked the crashes of the trees. Nothing like experiencing extreme weather (and on the anniversary of Super Storm Sandy!) to confirm the reality of climate change. What with the fires on the west coast, the drought and extreme heat in California and the multiple category 5 hurricanes, we're fortunate that we received only several inches of rain and some wind...
And we are still waiting to really, truly celebrate our 29th non-anniversary. Even farther north in Vermont, there still hasn't been a hard frost. We keep thinking, "Maybe tonight..."

Storm Surge

Ironically, the buckets to flush the toilet are not due to Sandy but that stupid blown well pump. Despite major efforts to rectify the pump's demise yesterday in the face of the burgeoning hurricane, closures of plumbing supply houses and highways prevented completion of pump replacement. But we never lost electric power...
The wind sang and shrieked and pushed and pulled and threw assorted sticks, branches and other leavings. I'm sure we all experienced some aspects of that hilarity! But we played Scrabble and sipped gins and tonics and slept like babes. I had some truly peculiar dream about James Taylor proposing marriage to me and saying how he had wanted to marry me since the first time he saw me (when I was like 12 years old). I kept suggesting reasons why this was just not feasible (like I have been committed to Bob for over 20 years and I never liked folk music in the first place and James Taylor liked cats and I liked dogs...) Plus James Taylor kept trying to serve me odd milky drinks in strangely shaped plastic cups. Weird.
Anyway, we're on course to repair the pump today. Wish us luck.
The next posting will begin the saga of pump repair. Stay tuned..

A Big Fat Milestone

This is officially my 200th blog posting. How can that be? A milestone! A blog that began on a whim- to document Bob and I on our householding/homemaking adventure- and here I am creating my 200th posting!
The bridge above, which spans our little stream, seems an apt metaphor for the crossing of so many bridges in this going-on-two-year journey. It has been such a great time!
But I will admit that today erupted with less than stellar events. First, Bob and I woke even earlier than usual as we were really hungry. We'd attended an opening last night (good show!) and never really ate dinner; just picked at appetizers. So we had coffee at 5:00 am and when I took Jules out, it was 6:00 and still totally dark. I turned on the back light and crossed the yard to talk to Crisco the Stallion, who always greets Jules and I.
But then I realized the yard smelled truly awful, like a chemical dump had occurred on the nearby highway.  I saw Jules rolling and Hey Presto! he had been sprayed by an accommodating skunk. Oh hell!!
I bathed Jules as best I could in tomato juice that Bob had whirred in the blender and then hosed him off. (Jules, not Bob). But by now, the whole house and Bob and I smelled less than sweetly. I guess I'd never smelled brand spanking new skunk spray, as it has a different note than the regular octane. The good news is that after a few minutes of being surrounded by the odor, you kind of don't notice any more. But if you
go away and come back, you just can't miss it... Bob went to help a friend batten down the hatches in preparation for our annual October Weather Event and our friend Joe assured Bob he did indeed
smell ripely.
And then, what with the already frenzied frenzy that has been whipped up around the arrival of Hurricane Sandy ( united in unholy union with not one but TWO other weather patterns), I'm feeling jittery and stinky and I finish washing the dishes and go to fill a bucket to sponge mop the kitchen floor (thinking to make the house smell more wholesome) and there's suddenly no water.
Of course, I first suspect power outage as our kindly utility has sponsored robo-calls to pre-announce wide spread power failures, in advance of the storm but it dawns on me that the lights still on. So a friend confirms later in the day that the pump on our well has blown. Perfect timing!
Tomorrow, in the face of 75 mile an hour wind and torrential rain the pump is due to be hauled out of the well head and replaced by heroic heroes (me included). Anyone care to join us for fun and games?

And yet the stream looked lovely today. Peaceful and serene and awaiting true havoc and chaos in the form of Storm Sandy.

Another lovely microvision to leave you with, before all hell breaks out in the morning...