Goodnight Irene

via

Well - Hurricane Irene has come and gone from our New England neck of the woods. I learned from my brother a while back that hurricanes begin right where he lives. They begin to form just off the coast of West Africa and gain strength as they move across the ocean. This time the storm basically traveled like a frisbee from his backyard to mine  - tho' Irene was downgraded to a tropical storm by the time she arrived here.   We had lots of rain and gusty wind but nothing too crazy serious here, thankfully. We did get some water flowing thru' our basement window when a microburst of sorts plowed thru the area but we were right on it. Oh - and we had the windows open upstairs which created a vacuum of sorts and caused a door to slam shut and a picture fell down/shattered. Other than that we're safe and sound.


Spokes came home for the weekend so all the kids were here and, being the storm lovers that we are, we hunkered down, watched storm coverage on the news and enjoyed this storm from the inside out - and even kinda made a special occasion out of it.  The timing was right too for a special occasion in the sense that this is the last weekend of summer vacation. Tuesday it's back to school for Strike - and Thursday for Playmaker.


Last night as a "pre-storm" swept thru' we turned our kitchen and dining room into an Italian Bistro of sorts - complete with candlelight.  Made homemade eggplant parmesan served on a bed of spinach spaghetti using our very own farm fresh veggies....eggplant, tomatoes, onion, peppers, basil and  oregano. Also made a fresh cucumber-tomato-basil mozzarella salad w/ our own veggies too - and topped off the meal w/ fresh focaccia bread dipped in olive oil and spices.

This morning we woke early to intermittent intense rain showers and wind gusts as the storm progressed. A good day to stay inside and few good reasons to go out - so - our kitchen/dining room then served as more of a bed and breakfast. I guess that's what you'd call it. Church was canceled due to the weather and we thoroughly enjoyed a very lazy day. About lunch time we finally decided to fix breakfast...eggs, bacon, fried potatoes, onions and peppers, and whole wheat french toast with homemade apple syrup and whipped cream.

As  I type, we're enjoying the calm after the storm.  Spokes just left to go home. Outdoors it's clean, clear and ever so quiet. Now that Irene has been here and gone and left me with my first pretty up close and personal experience with a hurricane - and as I look at the first pic in this post and consider that she was 400 miles wide, slow moving -  and in her path she left death (15 people in the U.S. I think...not sure about elsewhere) and damage -  and she was "only" a Category 1 storm ... I cannot imagine what it must be like to experience a Category 2, 3, 4 or 5 (yikes!). Hope I never ever have to.