Damage control

After storm Irene blew through all six of us here on the farm cleaned up what we could of the storm. The days and days of power outage finally exhausted our cooler's abilities to preserve much from the refrigerator. Dad loaded up his generator on the trailer and drove it from Barb's house to their house then on to mine over and over and over. Barb and I each chose one appliance to run and we tried to be sure things were split up accordingly. I still have the top of their wedding cake in my freezer...the one appliance I tried to keep at a workable temperature. I haven't dared look.

I had bushels of garden stuff because I needed to strip the plants before the storm~ the biggest single day harvest of the year. Donna and I drove down to the grocery store to get what was needed to preserve all this fresh-picked bounty. As we got to the parking lot a torrential rain beat down on us. Irene was still 12-16 hours away from impacting us at all and we were already seeing flooding. Slowly the gravity of our situation dawned as we sat there in the car, knowing the already saturated ground would partner with the coming wind to create a disaster on a level we had never seen. Donna started up the engine and we slowly drove home without ever having entered the grocery store. I have to admit to stopping by the liquor store.

 I can't remember when exactly my Aunt Barbara came to my rescue. If she hadn't taken my harvest off my hands completely it would have all rotted along with the contents of the refrigerator. And she is such a love...Barbara has the same passion we do for the fresh picked. I knew nothing would go to waste. It wasn't much considering the disappointing growing season, but it was all we had and I couldn't bear to see it wasted.

24 hours before Irene made landfall

24 hours after

It took a while for the full extent of the damage to reveal itself. You could look into a stand of trees and  leaves from broken branches and fallen trees blended right in, as long as they were green. As days went by all the broken started to reveal itself. Nathan bought himself a chainsaw and all of us worked to clear the paths. As more and more limbs were piled to the sides we realized the log splitter needed to be revved up...but no luck getting it going. The heavy heavy snow brought rodents into engines and air filters to take shelter. It was impossible to get into the shed or under tarps to check on things with a 36 inch snowpack. The tropical storms came on the heels of our earthquake. I am not sure I was joking when I said to people locusts would be next.

I haven't written about it or posted photos because so many people were hurt worse than us. Agriculture in our area took a double hit as record snow reduced sheds, garages and barns to jumbled piles of tinder. It is still hard to look at the twisted carcasses of our neighbors greenhouses. One family we know simply packed it in: put their retail location up for sale and left the ruined greenhouses as testimony to powerlessness. And all of that was months before record September flooding wiped out millions in crops along the CT river and deeply inland.

A month and a half later and we can't get equipment across the bridge over the brook without becoming completely mired. We had 3 1/2" more rain here last week and expect another inch or so today. Like I said, so many people suffered losses that the insult to our household shouldn't be whined about. We slipped away to South Dennis on Cape Cod and had a fabulous week...then came home to a post-storm newly restocked refrigerator with an internal temperature of 80 degrees! Two days of research and comparison pricing led us to Lowe's and a solid price on fridges with newer features. Next day delivery was exactly as promised although I did not account for the baseboard trim or the cabinet being just 1/8" off plumb. For the first few days it hung out into the kitchen while I DARED it to fail. It took about a week to really feel we could invest in cold food again. For a while I tried to wrap my brain around the idea that the loss of the refrigerator guaranteed it would be a while before we purchase that second car.

2011 has been quite a ride for this family so far...unemployed, snowed in, Dad ill, married, dug out, re-employed, Dad better, sister married, rained out then to ice it soon I will be turning 50. Not bad. Not bad at all. I really am happier than I have ever been!