Woot! Power is back on. Now my electronic life resumes … charging batteries, checking internet service, resetting clocks, plugging in the kettle, turning on the light in my windowless bathroom, sitting now with my iPad typing away.
Now complacency can set in since Helene (for us) turned out to be a minor inconvenience. Maybe it would have been psychologically worse for us if we hadn’t prepared for the worst, but as far as life and limb, we are so near normal now that Helene seems like a bad dream.
Yesterday, the hummingbirds came back in force, and my husband had to scurry to get the feeders back up. The butterflies (mostly long-wing zebras but we did see one Monarch yesterday) are also back and hungry.
While I’m glad to have power again, I’ll miss the dark sky, the relative silence (generators and owls competing for our attention), and the slowing down of life, the opportunity to “make do” and learn what I can live without.
Thanks to everyone for your good wishes!
Please keep in the mind all those who were hit harder by Helene than we were. We were saved by Helene tilting east, but that meant that others were not so lucky. Areas that were hit worse include Taylor County which has suffered through three hurricanes in the last two years.
I live in what is called the Big Bend of Florida, and tomorrow (Thursday) we will likely be cowering in place while a Category 3 hurricane blows through.
We live about 20 miles up from the M on the red Sharpie-like line in the above graphic.
Am I scared? Yup. This part of Florida has NEVER had a hurricane of this magnitude come through. My county has issued mandatory evacuations for people living in mobile homes, but not for the rest of us. But where would we go with two cats? There’s a greater risk that if we left, we wouldn’t be able to get home after the hurricane because of road closures.
Our house is solid, we have a metal roof, and a tall fence that could buffer our property if it doesn’t blow away. We have enough cat food for a few months. My husband is taking it all in stride since he grew up in Miami and weathered (pun intended) a number of hurricanes.
Still. Scary shit.
Worst case scenario is we and the cats will spend the day in the master bathroom.
This is an oldish photo but captures the cat attitude of “I’m fine as long as you feed me.”
Comments are closed since I’m likely to be offline for quite a long while.
To quote my recent Facebook post: Hurricane Idalia made landfall this morning, a bit further south than expected. Good for us, not good for others. We feel very lucky. However, we don’t have power so I’ll be turning my phone off soon 🙂 Just wanted to give you all an update.
You know, it really wonderful to have so many people care that I worry about running down the battery on my phone 😉😊❤️
Some of you may be following Hurricane Idalia. She’s shaping up (and over) to be the first major hurricane to hit the Big Bend area of Florida, where we live. In fact, weather experts are calling it an “unprecedented event.” Tallahassee is a band or two out from the purple in the image below, but close enough in that we are under a hurricane warning.
Thankfully, we live far enough inland that storm surges will not be a problem for us personally. But wind will be.
Am I scared? Yes.
We prepped as much as we can, but I’ve never ridden out a hurricane of this magnitude before so I can only hope we’ve done enough. The cats will be getting anti-anxiety meds with their evening meal to keep them from bouncing off the walls.
Last I heard Idalia should make landfall in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, so I guess I won’t be getting any sleep.
We’ll hunker down and hope that our little piece of property won’t get too torn up. I don’t expect miracles. I do hope this will not be a new normal for Florida. If we had wanted to ride out hurricanes, we would have moved to South Florida or the coast when we came here.
I used to joke that, thanks to climate change, we might eventually have beach front property without ever moving. We’ll see if I still have a sense of humor tomorrow.
Although I’ve been more absent than present on my blog over the last few months, I felt I should come on and say something about Hurricane Idalia. If I’m able to (depending on power outages, of course), I will do what I can to update this post once the wind has settled. That’s one good thing about Idalia, I guess. She’s supposed to move through fast.
See you on the other side of the hurricane!
If we live here long enough, Raji might get to enjoy a blue bayou right outside our door.
Now if I were a planner, I’d have all my remaining posts on our vacation written, proofed, revised and scheduled. But “Planner” is not my middle name. My middle name doesn’t even begin with P.
A more disciplined person than myself would have used this day–oh, happy day off work–to at least write up and scheduled those posts. And no one would be the wiser. But “Discipline” is also not my middle name, nor does my middle name begin with D.
No, this happened instead:
I wear hearing aids. Fancy ones with little soft plastic detachable domes that sit in the ear. Yesterday at work, I pulled out my left hearing aid and saw that the dome was gone. I searched the floor, thinking it had fallen off. Nothing. Not worried because I have plenty of these parts at home. I go on with my day. Go to the gym to walk/run the treadmill while listening to an audiobook with my earbuds. Go home. Have dinner, a glass (or two) of wine. My left ear starts to itch and it feels like I got a chunk of wax in there. Later I try to coax out the wax with … you guessed it … a Q-tip. Nothing. Then my ear starts to ache. Too late I realize that the dome was stuck in my ear. I tried some ear drops to see if lubricating it would allow it to slip out. Of course, not. It’s too big. I tried flushing with water. I went to bed in a panic because, of course, it was already past midnight and you know, there’s a hurricane coming. I eventually fell asleep but the earache got worse. First thing this morning I called my doctor’s office. Forty-five minutes later I was there. Ten minutes later the nurse practitioner pulled out the dome with a pair of tweezers. Fortunately I hadn’t done any harm to my ear canal or ear drum, although I have to use prescription ear drops and avoid wearing my hearing aids for a few days. Whew! Although I do need them, I don’t like wearing my hearing aids and usually don’t wear them unless I’m going to work or driving (public safety … need to hear those sirens).
The best part of the story is it gave me an opportunity to get some cash, fill up the gas tank, and buy some more water before the last minute shopping mobs clog the streets. Oh, and I tried to put diesel gas into my Prius. Just grabbed the wrong hose but it took me awhile to figure it out. Sometimes I feel (and act) like such a flake.
Okay, so there’s a hurricane coming and I haven’t any blog posts scheduled (except now this one) and I’ll be falling off the radar for awhile … not literally I hope.
I expect power outrages, of course, but fingers and toes are crossed that we all get through this safely. We’ve had plenty of notice and even some practice with Hurricane Hermine in 2016. Since we don’t live on the coast (we’re about 20-30 miles inland), we are not being evacuated. We will be riding out the storm as they say, but it’ll be bumpy.
So think of us over the next few days. I know I have some good friends out there who have weathered events like this (pun intended) and lived to tell the tale. I won’t pretend to be fearless. Hurricane Hermine made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane, and that was scary. Michael intends to be a Category 3.
I suspect that before the end of the day, we’ll all be huddled in the bedroom closet with Junior.
Marie at 1 Write Way 