Hurricane Sandy

I hope that all of you in Hurricane Sandy’s path, your families, and your homes came through safely! Sandy hit my corner of the country with winds that gusted to over 85 miles per hours throughout the night of October 29th. The town in which I live took a direct hit, and I was without electricity, landline, etc. from Monday night (Oct. 29th) until Saturday night (Nov. 3rd). Then, even though the electricity was restored, I didn't have TV, Internet, or phone until about an hour ago.

There are still many trees and some power lines down all over town. One of my beautiful huge pines out back went down and took out the neighbor's fence and my arbor, but there was no major damage to property. As I look at news photos and at my neighbors’ properties, I feel very blessed.

I have a generator, and that was a big help with the refrigerator and sump pump (though we didn't need the latter). We used a propane heater in the living room during the nights and on Wednesday an electrician neighbor came over and hooked up the generator to the furnace so there was central heat. Gas, however, was hard to find, and we had to wait in lines for up to four hours to fill the red plastic gas containers for the generator. We alternated between the generator and the propane heater as much as possible.

Chaucey, bless his little furry-ness, got through it all without even noticing that anything was amiss!

This has been like living in another century, but the sun is shining today, and now with all the utilities back, things are much more normal. Again, I hope you're all safe!

I've missed sharing poetry with you here on the blog, and I'll catch up with your comments soon. Please "stay tuned" — I'll post a new prompt this coming Saturday. Thank you again for your caring and for your concern!

(Photo: My pine tree and the empty space where the arbor was.)