Hurricane Sandy hit the eastern seaboard of the US last week and we were in it's path. Fortunately, this area was relatively unscathed. The rain came down, heavy at times, over serveral days.
My work was canceled on Monday and Tuesday of last week. Unnecessary travel was discouraged. Everyone waiting in anticipation of what would happen next.
The second picture below shows the water level in The Puddle Pond towards the end of the onslaught. The water flowed out the outlet pipe, into the stream which you can see in another picture below and then out into a much larger pond a neighbor has on his property.
Our main worry was the roots of the trees getting saturated and the wind then uprooting them. The only casualty was a tree that fell on the path to the pond which was easily moved. Any others that fell came down in the woods and caused no problems.
Our thoughts are with those in New Jersey and New York who were hardest hit by this monster storm. Having helped a close friend's family in 1972 to clean up in the aftermath of Hurricane Agnes, I can remember vividly the smells, mud, junk, etc that was present afterward. I can't begin to imagine what the feeling would be to have no home to go back to.
Directly below is the 1st of the month picture of The Puddle Pond. You can see how high the water level reached.
Mr P took many walks down to the Puddle and around the property during the storm and the photo below shows the rain falling. You can also see at the top of the hill the work that continues on those power line towers. Most of them have been completely erected but the electric lines themselves have not yet been re-strung. What a big, imposing eyesore they are compared to the towers they replaced! Work on them is at a standstill probably because of the muddy ground and the possibility of getting their heavy equipment stuck.
Here is a portion of the stream that runs along part of our property and you can see the water running fast and furious. Normally, there is very little water flowing down this stream and it's quiet.
Deer hunting season began here recently (bow and arrow) and the bucks are in rut (mating season). The forsythia planted down at the Puddle has suffered quite a big of damage from bucks rubbing their antlers to remove the "velvet" which is itchy. These plants should revive themselves next spring but they certainly took a hit.
Last weekend the last of the ripe figs were plucked from the fig tree. A batch of fig preserves had been made previously and gifted to several people who were interested in trying it. There were enough figs in the final picking to prepare one more batch of preserves. One of the gals I volunteer with at the library, who also happens to have a fig tree, insisted I would be able to get enough figs to make another batch of preserves. Her insistance was self-serving in that she wanted to sample the preserves. Do you hear this MW? Your pint jar of preserves will be hand delivered to you on Tuesday evening. The two jars in the back are the leftovers from the processing of the last neck pumpkin. The rest of the pumpkin was baked into two pumpkin pies.
The pumpkin along with a jar of the preserves is for OnlyDaughter, OnlySonInLaw and Grandsons #1 and #2. I don't know if the boys will want to try the preserves but they will surely eat the pumpkin bread their Mom will make.
My walking buddy, R, and I went on our walk yesterday heading out in the dark. Daylight Savings time ended and the clocks were turned back an hour overnight. Our walk this morning began in the semi-light we usually have about halfway through our walk. The downside is that it will be dark shortly after I arrive home from work in the evenings making it much harder to get out to walk.
I'm looking forward to watching "Call the Midwife" tonight on PBS. What a delightful BBC series!
I hope everyone had a good weekend. The Williamsburg posts will return sometime this week.
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