This morning we started getting some rain. Hurricane Michael, which I hadn't been paying any attention to, had come ashore on the Florida panhandle, crossed Georgia and in no time at all was in my neighborhood. I tried to get a picture of the rainfall but that's not easy to do:
So I tried again:
Better, but I had work to do. I went to work in my shop with the garage door open, and I was getting stuff done. Had to sweep out the water occasionally, but it wasn't bad. Back inside the house my cat was playing it safe in his paper bag:
That's his concerned expression.
Right around 5 this afternoon stuff started getting real. I was sanding a piece of wood and water kept spraying on it. What the hey? So I turned around and this is what I saw:
It was raining like a son of a gun and the wind had picked up significantly. I made some videos of the trees blowing around but as I was recording the action I started hearing trees snapping. That's never a sound one wants to hear. First - the Bradford pear in my front yard:
Then my neighbor's tree two doors down snapped with a large crack as I was making a video. Next, my neighbor across the street had a poplar tree start shedding limbs:
That limb punched a hole right through the hood of a car he had parked in his driveway. His storage shed out back was hammered by another falling tree. It was bad for a while, but luckily the hurricane blew out as fast as it had blown in and left us to clean up the damage.
This is the sky after the rain stopped:
Thus ends the story of Hurricane Michael. Now the work begins. I will have to clear the Bradford pear limb before I can leave my house, then I will spend days dragging brush, again, build a massive burn pile, again, and then - FIRE!
Tonight, rest. Tomorrow, labor.
11 comments:
I hate to say this, but here it's too cold for rain. Snowed today. Looks like below freezing every night for the foreseeable future.
God thought it was a Dodge Vampire.
Perfect time for a bonfire. No worries with the ground so saturated.
Great looking cat, btw.
Thanks, Amartel - that old boy has been with me for over 18 years now and we are best buds.
He is clearly at home, a cat in full (in his paper bag)!
Eighteen years. As wide eyed and lean as he is I wondered if he was full grown.
I could tell many stories of our years together, but the summary would be "I heard about a cat that likes to purr, I insisted that he move to my house, he has been the most affectionate personable cat I have ever owned, and he has outlived, outlasted and outsmarted every other cat that has shared our space."
He is currently sitting in his bag, content, well fed, at peace. He is a good cat.
I lost my cat buddy of 14 years last week. Got him when he was six. A rescue. He'd been living on the mean streets before being scooped up and deposited with a cat rescue. He was lean like that, too, with the big ears and the expressive eyes.
I miss him.
(He had a good life, it was his time, he's in a better place, blahblahblah; it still hurts to lose a friend.)
Chilly here today.
It has cooled off significantly here, too. Sometimes a tropical storm will have warm air from the tropics tagging along after it, but this one is just the opposite - the overnight low will be 48 this evening. Big change.
It's tough losing a pet - I miss every single cat and dog I have lost and it always seems that it's too soon, but that's the deal with pets. But I do enjoy having them around so eventually a replacement shows up and I move on. I could probably write some stories about various animals who have lived under my roof, there would be some sadness but on the other hand, they have provided some great stories, too. Maybe someday...
I'm sorry to hear that, Am, I missed that post. We are so lucky to have them.
Just checked, it's supposed to be in the thirties tonight.
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