Goodnight Irene, Goodnight

Last night we survived our first hurricane (after living through a tropical depression or two while going to college in Houston). Here's what our preparation looked like:

We pulled all of our outdoor stuff (hand-me-down patio furniture, trash cans, grill, compost pails) under our back porch and piled sand bags against the basement door. Here's Mr. MJ sweeping up debris around the storm drain.



We also moved all of our container garden into the back porch.



Kind of looks like a makeshift green house. Otherwise, we battened down every hatch we could find and bought one of the last packs of D batteries in the city (seemingly), along with bread, cheese, crackers, and bottled water.

Our neighbors across the alley prepared by cutting down a big old catalpa tree in their back yard (if you squint you can see the worker strapped to the trunk; sad to see that one go...it made amazing looking seed pods). You can see the storm clouds moving in beyond the houses.



And this morning, we woke up to electricity and a dry house. Hurrah! We consider ourselves very lucky in this regard. Here's the tail end of Irene moving on out. I'll see you in my dreams, old girl!