What is normal, anyhow?

They say a picture is worth a thousand words and that is true.  The first photo is the big oak that fell across my wild flower garden, and destroyed the lilac and another lovely bush.  No power for 4 days, then a day of scrambling to do laundry, run the dishswasher, etc., and the freakin' Internet went out completely or slowed down to a molasses in January crawl. 

The second photo is on Long Island where the foxes lived.  Three at one blow.  

After Irene, we were troopers, out scouting for ice, scouting for Wi-Fi and "D" Batteries, a rare commodity.  The wind rose at 6:30 Sunday morning and I jumped out of bed and made a batch of pesto genovese.  Ran the dish washer, and settled down to watch the storm on CNN.  At 10:30 a.m., before the storm actually hit us, the lights went out, not to be seen again until Wednesday night.  As bad as Hurricane Gloria in 1985. 

We have a gas stove and since I am squeamish about pilot lights, I lit the gas with big long fireplace matches.  Gas also meant hot water to hand wash dishes in, and hot showers, all Good Things. 

For Sunday dinner we had a delicious orzo salad with olive, anise, eggplant and zucchini.  By Monday the steak in the downstairs freezer was beginning to defrost so we had two nights of shish kebabs on the grill with lots of nice veggies.  By Tuesday, the chicken was thawing and I cooked a huge amount of chicken breasts for -- you guessed it chicken pesto.  I also cooked some chicken tenders a la chicken parm and we ate those one night.  We had the presence of mind to finish the ice cream on Sunday. 

During the storm, the hummingbirds were swooping around like crazy and they actually drank all their nectar.  All the birds were very interested in the fallen tree, and the thistle seed feeder and 2nd suet feeder were practically dragging the ground, but the birds immediately found these feeders and like the cozy feeling of being incased in leaves.

Of course some big mean hawk showed up, but I don't think he caught anyone.  When I went out early Monday morning to bring in the paper, a turtle dove was sitting on the front porch, looking  a wee bit lost.  My garden proper was relatively undamaged and the flowers did like the rain, and the cucumbers kept us supplied with salad. 

We fed the cows and the calves were leaping all over the pasture and having  a great time.  S.O. took a movie which i will post.  The Muscovy ducks that hang out with the cows have two cute ducklings.    The rooster crows every morning and we do realize we live in a neighborhood where there is still "agriculture."  Hooray for agriculture.

I will post again soon now that the lights and the Internet are back.  Reading by candlelight is no fun, but we did have 5 flashlights, 2 camp lanterns, a hurricane lantern, and 16 candles.   We just cursed the darkness a little bit.  Saw The Help and The Debt, both good.  Movies are a wonderful way to spend an evening when your house is darker than a tomb.

We aren't eating any chicken this week, no siree.  Total O.D. on chicken.  Hamburgers and pork tenderloin and yummy swordfish.  Even during the storm, life was good and it was lovely sitting on the deck for days and just watching the birds, squirrels and chipmunks.  Hardly anything beats watching the birds.  Well, maybe the Red Sox.

As Ever,

Grapeshot