Waiting for Henri

We are waiting for Hurricane Henri to hit on Sunday.  We are doing what preparations we can but anxiety reigns.  We both remember Hurricane Bob when we were without power, witout water, without refrigeration for a week.  We remember the thick darkness and the isolation.  In order to get out of the house, we had to climb over fallen trees.  The road was impassible.  Trees blocked it.  Our own standing trees had their leaves blown off.  Above shoulder level, it was winter for the trees, but below that, some leaves remained.  The foxes, the coy-wolves, the fisher cats took back the night.  The raccoons had a party in our compost pile with all the thawed rotten meat, soggy cakes and breads, thawed vegetables and fruit.  We ate what we could while it was still good and then had to throw out a full freezer’s content after that, we lived on canned goods and what remained of the garden.

Now we have a generator, but how long the propane lasts is a matter of concern.  Still, if nothing falls on it, it should help us for a while to keep the pump, the refrigerator, the freezer going and a couple of lights.  We won’t be able to do air-conditioning, as it takes too much power.  I’m sure the cable will go out as it usually does in bad storms. 

We are engaged in taking into the house everything like bird feeders, buckets, baskets, wind chimes, heron sculpture – what we find that could become a missile.  We still don’t have the best guess path down yet.  It looks as if we’ll be on the east side as we were with Hurricane Bob, no rain, which we badly need, but very high winds.  It spawned two tornadoes, one of which ripped through town and then across a friend’s woods, leaving them with a new meadow. The other tornado went up the Herring River, closing the sand roads for a fw months till local people opened it up with chain saws. 

Today it’s sunny and quite humid.  Woody did a massive shopping today and gassed up the car.  I don’t know if we’ll get to can more tomato sauce before the storm hits us.  It’s a time of high anxiety and dread. They say the winds could rip off roofs and shingles, knock down our greenhouse and at least of couple of our sheds and our big trees, the sugar maples, the white firs, the weeping beech.  If the wind comes from the East, it just gathers strength across the marsh.  To the west, we have a hill.  No obstacles and more marsh to the north and south. 

We’re seeing friends tonight while we still can.  Going over to Stephanie and Natasha’s house. We bought storm shutters after Hurricane Bob, but the windows have been replaced since then and the shutters would no longer fit.  I used to  use masking tape on the windows but I’ve learned that’s useless.  /It was always a messy cleanup.  The latest news has us getting little or no rain but high winds, u to 70 mph.  I’ve doing Sunday house laundry and Monday personal laundry all day, canning tomatoes again, freezing beans, bell peppers and hot peppers.  Whatever Woody brings in.  It’s hot and so humid it feels as if a hot brick is pressing down on us.  I’m already half tired and it’s only a little before one.  The cats are sleeping as if they were drugged.  Humidity gets Schwartzie and Willow.  Mingus is very shorthaired with no undercoat and loves the heat.  He can’t see why the other cats aren’t available today.  We’re expecting Henri in the middle of the night.