Sunday's High Tea almost Gone Away With The Wind

June 29, 2009

The individual artisan loaves were done Friday, as were the vegetables that

needed marinating. Saturday I sliced the cheeses and the remaining vegetables

and roasted the yellow squash and red peppers on the grill. The sandwiches were

assembled, well wrapped and put in the jelly roll pan with a board over it and

several large cans of vegetables on top to weight it down. Everything was made

from food storage or fresh from the garden.

I made some lemon thins, Carl's favorite cookie which is made from a box of cake

mix and a jar of seedless raspberry jam and some butter, and some Buckeye

candies (peanut butter balls dipped half way in chocolate.

Carl and I were ready for High tea when we got up but had breakfast instead:

creamy grits (like Polenta but a finer grain of corn), poached eggs, fresh

cantelope and vanilla yogurt.

In the afternoon he went to lay down, which is rare

for him as he is one of those men who hit the ground running and he doesn't

stop until 9:00PM for a little bit of television. I thought it would be nice to

join him and relieve him of the burden of cats draped over various parts of his

body. In the end I had 4 on me and the two female cats who have laid claim to

him were draped artistically across his chest. Sis graciously groomed his beard

and Abba Angel Baby just napped, curled up in his arm, purring madly. Motra and

Godzila jumped ot window perches and watched the sky. They always do this when

interesting weather is coming, so I was happy that the laundry was already in,

folded and put away.

The weather alert on the Singer Weather Watcher program went off but by the time

I got to the living room, the power was gone and we were having some heavy

liightning, rain and hail. The wind was quite impressive, so I figured layijng

back down and reading by the light of a candle would work better than going

outside to work in the garden.

The animals were going rather wild and all the cats took to the highest perches

in the house. Toby, our big chow/shep mix who is unhappy with

lightning and thunder, ended up in his chair with his dear lady friend, Akira

(Siamese mix who took one look at Toby and said, He's the one for me, much to

his chagrin.)

A large whomp against the house got me out of bed to see what had happened (and

to check the sky) and one of the garage doors was propped up against the front

porch. Thankfully the inner wall held fast and none of the containers of

survival goods had been blown away. (False wall in garage, preps behind it, no

one so far has seen any difference. I'm rather good at scenery.)

More wind, trees blowing down due to straight line winds and I heard several

more thumps down the street. Ursula stuck her nose outside on the porch next to

me, got a drop of rain on it and went back inside.

The storm blew itself out and I went outside to check the damage to the preps

and see what happened to the garage door. The top hinge was twisted off and the

bottom hinges had

disappeared.

About that time, the battery powered weather radio sent out a severe

thunderstorm warning - the same warning we had gotten (for free) from Singer's

Weather Watcher a good half hour sooner.

Carl finally woke. Something about the air conditioning being off and 11 cats

draped over his body from the top of his head (Linux) to the bottom of his

ankles (Mothra), made him rather hot. We did the house and yard check and have

lost a large branch from the 300 year oak, a couple of shall pines and some

flattened veggies (they have come back ok). Carl went to check on the boss

(boss's kids don't bother doing that), and found a large branch had taken down

his electric wire, but they were otherwise safe. Mr. P suggested that Carl go

and see if the road was passable so the County road people could get in, along

with the electric company.

He came home long enough to grab his chain saw and extra gas. There were several

trees on power

lines (he didn't touch those) and one large oak completely blocking the road.

After getting the road cleared, he checked on other people and cleared debris so

several could get out in case of emergency. He also started the generator for an

elderly couple so they could at least have a lamp and a fan.

Meanwhile my stomach was informing me that it was hungry but with no power there

was no chance of a hot pot of tea. Boo hoo!! It was too hot to eat, anyway, so I

nibbled a couple of cookies to tide me over till we had power and air

conditioning.

We got in the truck (with his trusty chain saw and our emergency BOB's just in

case) and cranked up the AC to freezing. Despite the US Weather Service saying

that it was just a thunderstorm, there is a lot of evidence of straight line

winds, a church with part of the roof and all of the sign missing and several

trees which had been torn apart in a circular manner.

The wonderful electric company linemen had power back to us in about 6 hours,

which was astounding, as at least one of the poles had been pulled out of the

ground and a lot of lines were down, capacitors blown and the usual assortment

of things that happen in a power outage. Carl found one of the linesmen and told

him where the lines were around our place that were either down or with a heavy

branch on top.

Those guys (and women) are great! I don't think enough credit is given to them.

I don't know about you, but just the thought of going outside in a bad

thunderstorm, playing with live cables and arcing capacitors isn't my idea of

just a day at work.I got some of the cookies and the remaining sandwiches

together and Carl gave them to the lineman who was putting Mr. P's line back

where it belonged.

We finally got our pot of tea and sandwiches about 9 last night and convinced

the dogs to go outside for potty break, which they did in a quick manner. Our

local son came over to see if we were ok. It had taken him several hours, as his

road was blocked by trees and the police weren't even letting cars go down

several roads, due to debris.

Anyway, that's my weekend. How was yours?

Jeanne in GA

June 29, 2009

Just can't top this!

________________________________

" treazured " <treazured

; ;

LowCountrySurvivalist

Monday, June 29, 2009 4:03:57 PM

Sunday's High Tea almost Gone Away With The Wind

The individual artisan loaves were done Friday, as were the vegetables that

needed marinating. Saturday I sliced the cheeses and the remaining vegetables

and roasted the yellow squash and red peppers on the grill. The sandwiches were

assembled, well wrapped and put in the jelly roll pan with a board over it and

several large cans of vegetables on top to weight it down. Everything was made

from food storage or fresh from the garden.

I made some lemon thins, Carl's favorite cookie which is made from a box of cake

mix and a jar of seedless raspberry jam and some butter, and some Buckeye

candies (peanut butter balls dipped half way in chocolate.

Carl and I were ready for High tea when we got up but had breakfast instead:

creamy grits (like Polenta but a finer grain of corn), poached eggs, fresh

cantelope and vanilla yogurt.

In the afternoon he went to lay down, which is rare

for him as he is one of those men who hit the ground running and he doesn't stop

until 9:00PM for a little bit of television. I thought it would be nice to join

him and relieve him of the burden of cats draped over various parts of his body.

In the end I had 4 on me and the two female cats who have laid claim to him were

draped artistically across his chest. Sis graciously groomed his beard and Abba

Angel Baby just napped, curled up in his arm, purring madly. Motra and Godzila

jumped ot window perches and watched the sky. They always do this when