Hurricane Prep

Yesterday was a beautiful day — sunny and warm. Perfect day to batten down the hatches, right?

By afternoon the fog rolled in, but we picked up all of our tools, stakes, and brought in the outdoor furniture and other loose things. As you can see above, we also took down all the plastic sheeting covering our fall veggies. That stuff flaps around in far less windy conditions than we are expecting, so we just went ahead and took it down. We left the PVC stakes in place, but may have to gather them up from other places in the yard if the wind pulls them out. 

By mid-morning today, it was already misting, and Kirk took advantage of our last chance before the real rain to clear out the gutters. Most of the leaves are off our big maple tree now, so this was good timing anyway. We skipped the raking, hoping to get lucky and have the wind corral all the leaves in a corner of the yard — preferably next to the compost bins!

Fletch is one nervous cat today! He is lurking about all the doors, meowing to get inside. When I went out, he was right by me the whole time, trying to cuddle up as close as possible. I guess he knows something is up.  

Now that school has been canceled for me and for the kids, the only concern I have left are these trees. The big maple and two slightly smaller spruce trees are very close to the house. We had scheduled the spruces to be taken down this week, but that was moved back because the utilities had to (obviously) keep their schedules open for dealing with more important wiring issues than ours. These trees have made it through years and years of big wind storms in the past, but I think we're forgiven for being a little gun-shy, considering our history in this house.

No matter what happens, we know we'll be able to eat with fresh food in the back yard and preserves in the kitchen!