It's an ill wind...

And it was too. We had a grand-daddy of a wind storm a couple of weeks ago. I'm too lazy to deal with getting photos on Blogger, but they're all on Flickr. I have a widget that uploads there easily, thank goodness.

It had, of course, been raining and raining...and just for a change, raining some more. The ground hereabouts is completely saturated. We've got pools of water all over our woods, one seasonal creek is going strong and we could probably dig a channel for another. The north side of the driveway is yet another creek. Septic leach field has had standing water over it--the Better Half dug out the seasonal creek and that seems to have fixed that problem, thank goodness. The well overfloweth too, which means our water is potentially contaminated by the nearby leach field. So. Very wet. Then the wind.

As I was putting the Spawn to bed, we heard a great many thumps and bangs--branches and pine cones falling on the roof, I think. There were also a few power flickers, which had her freaked out. She's not big on the whole darkness thing just now. But the power stayed on and she eventually settled down and went to sleep. This only lasted until...10:30 or so, when the power went down and stayed down. I managed to get her back to sleep, but only until 5:30. That's when she really lost the plot about the darkness. Hooray for keeping flashlights all over the house.

Once it got light, we made plans to head for warmer and lighter areas (gotta have a wood stove in whatever house we buy!). But...flashing lights out at the end of the driveway. There was a large tree down across the road and the power lines. The police said it had stopped sparking an hour ago though and we were allowed to go in search of breakfast. That plus an expedition to the local shopping mall occupied a decent chunk of the morning. Power finally came back on at 10:30 or 11:00 that morning.

Once we got back and turned on/plugged in everything that needed it, we decided to see what else had happened in the night. My, oh my, oh my. Half a dozen sizable trees were down in the pasture, three or four in the woods, and a big maple in the side yard. I wouldn't even try to count the smaller trees (smaller being defined as of a size to be cut down by the Better Half). Oh, and the tree across the road was from our place too.

A lot of the trees that fell were standing in completely saturated ground, which was probably why they fell. There was one deadfall and the maple was diseased. We were lucky, since no structures were damaged and no animals were hurt. I certainly hope that was it for this winter though.

All this prompted the Better Half to get a 40 cubic yard container dropped in the front for the hauling away of brush. Merry Christmas--it was delivered the Thursday before and will be going back full on Monday. I don't even want to think about what all the brush hauling has done to the pasture. And there's enough left for another container, maybe two. There are times when there's something to be said for urban living. We're not moving though. We ARE planning to look for our own property in the winter and will reject out of hand any places as waterlogged as this one.

What I learned today

I learned that octopuses have three hearts. They apparently also have lots of extra neurons in their tentacles. Neat trick, that. I also learned that Jupiter now has sixty-three moons! I am just thankful I didn't have to read *all* the names to the Spawn. I would have, but we'd already done the names of most of the other moons in the solar system. A big thank you to the Spawn for getting me started.

Oh, and I also learned that sheep do indeed fit themselves through relatively small spaces, no matter what the Better Half might think. But they're very susceptible to being lured back into the pasture with sheep crack (otherwise known as a handful of grains).