Goodnight Irene!

24 hours after the storm the lights are finally back on. Last night, I was wrapped in my prayer shawl knitting by candle light trying to block out the terrifying sounds of the trees being thrown to the ground by the monster winds. It was a horrible night with 5 cats, 2 dogs and a parrot all stuffed into the basement listening to the howling of that horrible wind. No one got any sleep.



Until the power came on a few minutes ago, this is what my world looked like. Without power, we also have no water so a day without toilets is a very long day.



I was very anxious for the sun to come up in order to see what all the crashing and banging was about. I knew it wouldn't be good. My deck was a disaster.



Even worse, we lost a lot of trees including two of my beautiful silver birches.



That was my picnic table and bench. Both goners under the huge black walnut that crushed them. It just missed the house. That was my last black walnut. I lost one to Isabelle and now the last one to Irene. No more walnut dye. I am very sad about that.



The outside kitty houses got mangled. All but one kitty was inside the house for the duration much to their unhappiness. The mommy cat couldn't be coaxed in. I was frantic with worry. We didn't see a sign of her all day but happily tonight she showed up for dinner. She seemed a bit skittish but otherwise fine.



Everything is covered in leaves. It looks like a green blizzard.



The leaves are all still attached to branches which makes cleaning them up very hard. I'm not complaining though-we still have a roof.