The Wind Blew and the Branches Flew!

Yikes!  What awful winds!
Hope we don't have another such weather occurrence for at least a hundred years.

Deiter sat by the window watching the leaves streak by early in the storm.

When the 50-mile-an-hour stuff started, all the cats ran for cover.

Just after it got dark on Monday evening, the horror show started.  The power went out, we were left in the dark.  Out came the candles and the oil lamp.  We could hear metal shingles starting to fly off the roof of our summer kitchen.  Then there was a WUMPH! like the house had been hit by a fist.  The wind raged on and on.  With the streetlights out, we really couldn't see anything outside but a swirling mass of dark shadows.

There we sat in the dim candlelight wondering what on earth people did before the age of electricity to entertain themselves during the long cold blustery winter evenings.  The light was too dim to read or knit even if I could have concentrated on either.  Thanks to the woodstove, we were at least warm.

Around midnight the wind seemed to slack off slightly so we decided to take our candles and head up to bed.  It wasn't exactly restful sleeping wondering if there would still be a roof on the house in the morning.

When we woke up around 8 a.m. the wind was only a steady stiff breeze.  Still no power!  We had taken the precaution of filling large post of water for the kitchen and several buckets of water for the bathroom.  The biggest concern was that the food in the freezer would thaw before electricity was restored.  It was only about 40 degrees outside.  We put our perishables from the fridge out in the little back pantry where there is no heat.

The pantry.  With a huge piece of tree on the roof!

We have more tree damage this past year than we've had in the 40 years we've owned this house.  The maples are huge and very old and I guess it's time to remove some of them to ward off any more damage to the house.  I will hate to see them go.  We will plant other trees to replace them but it will take years to get the same amount of shade and privacy the old ones have given.

A friend who lives nearby still had power and he offered us his generator.  Of course we didn't have any gas to run it!  So on Tuesday afternoon we headed for town to fill our container with gas.  We had heavy rains, but the water was only up into our front yard a minimal amount.  When we got to the creek between Newburg and Shippensburg we were shocked to find water way up out of the banks.

This is a field beside the creek.

And this is the creek itself. It's usually way down in between the lines of trees with grassy banks on either side.

When we returned from town the power was still off.  We decided to wait till closer to dark to go get the generator.  Horay!  About 5 p.m. the lights flickered and then there was a steady glow from the ceiling fixture.  We held our breath!  Yes, they are going to stay on!

We are so thankful for the storm to be over even though the skies have been gray, it's still raining off and on, and it's cold.  es, that's snow on top of the mountain behind our house.

Deiter says, 'that was a nasty one, Mom!'

Our thoughts and prayers go out to those who had it so much worse than we did.
We were very lucky in our area!