Hurricane Irene



I hope all of you survived Irene better than I did.  Because Locust Hill Road was totally blocked by live wires, I was stuck at the top of the hill. No power, no water, except in the cellar where there was enough to float my freezer full of freshly frozen vegetables from the garden and about fifty pounds of beef, part of the Fords’ “rent” for hay fields and pastures.  

A celler full of water                   And a floating freezer

I was the only house on the road without a generator, busy mopping up leaks, pulling spoiled food from the freezer and lugging water to the bathrooms from the pond. Missing the entire first week of the U.S.Open was painful for this tennis enthusiast, but trying to read by flashlight at my age was even more painful.  Irene dropped enough large limbs from my dying sugar maple to keep the wood stove going for a month, and I picked up so much bark and dead branches that I'll have enough kindling  for the entire winter. 

 I can remember being without electricity off and on over the years when a night or two without light  was an adventure  – getting out the kerosene lanterns and the candles, playing games with the kids,  naming all the things we couldn’t use -  the TV, the toaster, and the telephone, just to name the T's.   And with a gas stove to cook on, it was almost fun. Irene's devastation was  not fun, but I'm not complaining.  Compared to all the folks whose houses Irene destroyed, I was lucky. I got power back in six days, and water in seven when the drowned water pump in the cellar got repaired.

Without a working computer, writing to keep busy meant the pencil and that big yellow pad of paper, which didn't appeal, so I never gave a thought about a subject for my next column.  So here I am, with nothing but my thoughts on Irene.  I trust I'll come up with a garden topic by the weekend.  In the meantime, I wish you all luck in whatever clean-up you're facing.