Irene, Irene, Irene . . .

Shenanigans Inc. is back online!

Woohoo!

Typically, I love a good storm, but I am definitely not a fan of Irene.  Most of the storms we get here in New Brunswick are snow storms, and I love them because a good blizzard means lying in your bed waiting for the radio broadcaster to announce that school is cancelled, which he almost always does, rolling over and falling back to sleep, wearing your jammies all day long, watching movies, and drinking hot chocolate.  They are awesome!  But hurricanes, or post-tropical storms, which is what Irene devolved into by the time she greeted us, are a whole different story.

 

Knowing my kids and Scout were sleeping soundly in Zoe's room, I curled up beside Mr. Level-Headed, burrowed myself deeply beneath my duvet and drank in Irene's spectacular feast for the senses.  I was soothed to sleep by the sound of her pelting rain on my sky lights and her howling winds outside my bedroom window, the sight of her erratic light show, and the smell of her moist, southern air. 

She was magnificent! 

Two hours later, though, I was awakened out of my blissful revelry by a crying child, who is terrified of the dark and who was startled to learn that the power had gone out.  He crawled in between Mr. Level-Headed and I, and we fell back to sleep.

CRASH!

Pumped full of adrenaline and fear, I jumped out of bed.

What was that?! 

I guess I was the only who heard it because the two sleeping bodies beside me did not budge.  I peered outside my bedroom window to see what had happened, but it was too dark to see.  At this point, I had envisioned one of the large trees that surround our house to have fallen on one of the cars, or even worse, our roof.  By now, I am not sleeping and there is no way I will be sleeping with the dynamic duo coursing through my veins.  Ugh!  It was going to be a very long night.

Eventually, I did fall back to sleep, and I was shocked to wake up to the sun streaming through our window.  With the power still out, Mr. Level-Headed and I went around to assess the damage.  It turned out that the crash outside our window was from a piece of the fascia on our roof, which had been torn off by the wind and blown onto a nearby tree.  All-in-all, our home fared pretty well in the storm, and so with some fear and trepidation, we walked around to check out the garden.

GASP!

It was destroyed.

My  bean plants.

My corn stalks.

My tomato plants

It was devastating to sift through the damage.  The low-lying plants like our zucchini and cucumber were unharmed, and, luckily, the tomato plants only had to be secured back up, but the corn stalks were broken and many of the bean plants were uprooted.

 Due to the remaining high winds, the ferry was down, which meant Mr. Level-Headed could stay home and help me salvage what was left of our crop.  I was most upset over the corn because prior to Irene's post-tropical wrath, it was flourishing, but after being hewn down prematurely, there were only three corn left that were ready to be eaten versus the ten that had to be discarded in the compost bin . . . weep, weep.

But, they were awfully tasty!

This is what my garden looks like today:

It's pretty bleak.

Thank heavens I have found some good recipes for zucchini because, guess what kids, that is all we've got to eat until next year's crop comes in . . . 

tee hee!