First Storm

Wow!! I didn't relize how long it has been since I have visited with you. I'm surprised. I was sitting here this morning thinking that I should write something again, but what? Then within a few minutes, I got hit with several ideas. I am going to mention them, just so I can have my own reminders to come back to. I thought about our Stotm ( the westher); Family history; = = = =
So, I guess I'll start off with the most current - the Storm. Sorry, already I forgot what the others were.

We have had several years of below normal rainfall, and it shows it. Crops are struggling, lawns are suffering, and just all over lack of rainfall. The fields, and natural areas are not as grassy and green as they usually are. This month we have had some unseasomably high temperatures - not really hot, but just higher than usual. Then this week, and yesterday in particular, the westher tried to make up for lost time. I had not turned my TV on for a week (this is my way of fasting) so I had missed the weather reports building up to this. But Sunday night when I turned it on. they were showing the forecast for this week, with the storm hitting Tuesday. We were supposed to have at least 2 inches of rain, with winds in the 30 - 40 mile level, with gusts up to 60 or 70 miles. We were warned to be prepared for power failures, and all kinds of unseasonable things happening. I don't think it turned out quite as bad as forecast, but it was quite a storm. This morning's paper said almost two inches of rain, and winds in excess of 30 miles an hour. We had lots of power outages in the area, mostly due to fallen branches, or trees, or limbs getting caught up in the power lines. Here at the facility where I live, we were without power from ll:35 am until 10.45 pm. The way my room is arranged, my back is to the window, so unless there is a lot of noise with the storm, I don't really realize what is going on outside. I know everytime I looked outside, the water was pouring off the roof of the building next door, and I could see that the treees were blowing quite a bit. Storms of this kind do not usually hit here this early in the season, so the trees are still full of leaves, making the winds much more damaging. The leaf covered branches hold back the wind more, causing more force on the trees, hence more broken limbs and touching of the power lines to branches. I'm not sure what caused our outage, but it could have been a number of things. Very annoying, to say the least. Even our emergeny lights, which are battery powered and go on automatically when the power goes off, were off because their batteries went dead. Because we had no power, our electric dishwasher did not work, and the dishes had to be washed by hand. Every meal is served in two siittings here, so the first sitting for lunch had already been served when the power failed. So, the second sitting got their lunch on plastic plates. Second sitting for dinner is usually 5 pm. but because there was no auxiliary lighting in the dining room, they fed us at 4:15 pm. We had tuna/noodle cassarole and peas, with pineapple for desert. Our beverages were served in styro-foam cups, dinner on plastic (throw away) plates, plastic forks & spoons. Surprising how much the cloudy skies cut down the light in the dining room. They have gas stoves, so at least they were able to serve hot food.

I fell asleep about 8 pm for a little while, and when I woke up, I could not go back to sleep, so I got up and went down to the dining room where the staff were gathered around a table, with a battery operated lantern. I was trying to read. It's amazing when I think that until I was in college, all we had to read by in our house was small kerosene lights. Mom, my brother and I would all sit around the dining room table so we kids could do our homework while Mom sewed or read. Dad always had his own table, chair and lamp. My, how times have changed!!

Well, I think that about covers the storm, so I'm going to call it quits. I'll write more later, and maybe by that time I will have thought of what the other things were I wanted to remember.

Bye for now,