November 3, 2012

I have been thinking about how lucky we were at the farm during Hurricane Sandy. Overall we had no real damage to speak of. We had spent a lot of time in preparation bringing things in, boarding up the stables, tying down bee hives, and cleaning field drains, which I think was a big help. We had extra feed for the animals, and stored about 200 gallons of water for them in case the electricity went out, but luckily that didn’t come to being.

About the only thing I had to attend to was ‘ol Lou who became lame with a hoof abscess (cleared up now). The goats didn’t mind the wind but as all goats go, they didn’t like getting wet so stayed in their shelter for the duration with a bale of hay to eat. After the storm they were so full of hay they turned up their noses at the grain! The chickens were protected from the wind by their shed, and most of them stayed out in the tempest sucking down worms, etc – the chickens just didn’t care at all, and even laid a few eggs which did surprise me...I thought the storm would stress ‘em out and shut them down but it didn’t. And then the ducks - to them all the rain and wind amounted to a great surprise party! They were almost too happy.

Water did come up a bit toward the back of the property were it slopes off to the lowland forest, but not enough to concern me. And we lost a few branches from a tree or two, but again, nothing unordinary.

It was a bad storm. I watched the wind bend our trees over and it rained sideways for hours and hours. At times it was down right scary. I know a lot of people who lost their cars and homes to flooding, roads are still closed from damage and debris, many are still waiting for the electric to come back on...and that’s why I say I we were lucky at the farm, and to be honest, I am not taking this blessing for granted. I am grateful, and I am having a hard time putting it into words.