WOW!

What a summer it's been.

I'm taking a break from my travelogue to the Midwest to comment on the past week's phenomena.

Several times this summer we in Northeast PA have experienced torrential downpours.

Last week we had an earthquake. Yes, Pennsylvania and points north, south, east and west. Weird.

A few days later Hurricane Irene blew into town, literally.

She left us with 4.5 inches of rain. That was only part of the story. Her winds were relentless.

Two of our 25' Blue Spruce trees were uprooted, a window blown out in the barn, and the most inconvenient, a power outage for 36 hours.

Yet our inconvenience was little by comparison. Many others had to endure days with no power and some are still without it.
Others had a lot of damage to homes and vehicles, and one man lost his life when a tree fell on his camper.

North of us in Wyoming County, they had severe flooding and many were stranded unable to leave their homes.

New York and Vermont and New Jersey, had severe flooding as well.

The last I read there were 40 deaths from Hurricane Irene; a very sad statistic.

Back to our power outage. Like so many in our area we have a well powered by electricity. Yep, no power, no water. . . no water, no flushing.

My husband was able to get some water from our water pond for a day or so. We could at least flush and thanks to a gas stove could heat water to wash. Then he had to get more from our son. Much thanks to him. I had some bottled water on hand for drinking.

At night we were back to the pioneer days of candlelight. A modern invention, the Kindle with its book cover and built in light came in real handy. 

We had to throw out everything in our refrigerator. It needed a good cleaning anyway.

What a pleasure it is to throw a switch and voila', lights or turn on a faucet and voila', water.

The Lord awakened us to the pleasures we enjoy and take for granted.

Thank goodness it wasn't winter and no heat.

Perhaps it's time to invest in a generator.

Now tropical storm Lee is heading north with copious amounts of rain to deposit and out in the Atlantic is Hurricane Katia . . . who knows where she is headed.

WOW, and it's only the beginning of September.