BIG WIND

"Shine on, Shine on, Harvest Moon"   *

 

 

The full moon in September is the Harvest Moon; its bright illumination allows farmers to work well into the evening to bring in the crops.  This moon is celebrated around the world.  Chinese and Asian cultures have a substantial Moon Festival with special foods and many activities to commemorate the harvest.  We hope many of you enjoyed some delicious moon cakes.  But this year the full moon last weekend will be remembered in the USA for Hurricane Ike.  So let's go back in time to last week, particularly the weekend.

 

When Ike came ashore in Texas, the weather people were already predicting that it would track north towards the Ohio River area and, although diminished, would still be a potent storm – not unusual.  As they subside, storms out of the Gulf of Mexico often come up the Mississippi and Ohio valleys, mostly bringing rain.  Actually we were looking forward to some rain to recharge our cistern.

 

So when we drove to Columbus on Friday to have a bon voyage lunch with Ralph – off on his annual sojourn in the City of Lights (Hope you are enjoying your charming flat!) – we expected the rain, sometimes torrential, that we encountered.  Rain continued on and off while we worked at the studio in the afternoon.  But the weather folks said this was a different system, the remains of Ike were yet to come.

 

Saturday we were able to contact JT who had recently relocated to Houston.  We were relieved to hear that the family had power and water, and were doing well.  Their section of Houston had not been evacuated and escaped relatively unscathed.  We should have been more attentive when she said there had been a lot of wind.  The remainder of the day passed with the usual chores and we prepared to watch the OSU-USC game in the evening.  The weather had been rather innocuous and was calm as we went to bed at halftime. 

 

Sunday dawned without much hint of what was to come.  We were peeved by yet another embarrassing performance by the Buckeyes in a big game, but otherwise nothing unusual was in the air.  The weather people were still warning us to be prepared.

 

And then late afternoon/ early evening it hit. The winds did blow and howl.  The remnants of  Ike had conjoined with a cold front out of Canada and produced a major storm  We could hear trees crack and groan as they strained to remain upright.  We heard thuds from time to time alerting us that trees had fallen.  We even saw a few trees behind the storage shed fall into the ravine.  And then just before 7 pm it became calm for an instant before a truly fierce gust powered through.

 

And then a really loud sound of a tree hitting the ground.  Very close by.  We could feel the force.  We looked out the patio and discovered the tree – on the house.  The wind had uprooted a tree from the bank behind the house.  It crunched a corner of the patio and later we learned put a hole in the roof.  It is a testament to the quality of our house that there was no structural damage.  Here are some pictures:

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9151458@N07/sets/72157607354048670/

 

 

We immediately contacted our neighbor the timber man to get first in line to have the tree removed.  We contacted our builder who was able to schedule us at the top of his list.  (They both would come out Monday morning to evaluate the situation.)   And of course we contacted our insurance company (which has been very responsive thus far). 

 

About the same time Sunday night the electricity went off.  Fortunately we had a generator to keep our freezer working.  The electricity came back on early Tuesday morning.  The tree was removed and the house was repaired good-as-new on Tuesday also.  We had about two days of 'roughing it' but all is back to the usual routines.

 

We know many of you also had your lives disrupted by Ike; some of you probably suffered an electrical outage longer than ours.  We pray that all is back to normal with you as well.

 

*  To listen to a rendition of "Shine on, Harvest Moon" go to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yki0xD7VSlo&feature=related

 

 

 

On another note:

 

Nick has relocated to Madison, Wisconsin.  The University of Wisconsin needed someone of Nick's expertise to work their system similar to Carmen at The OSU.  Nick fit the bill and they made him an offer that provided a good career opportunity.  We will miss him up there is the land of cheese heads but know he will do a superior job and will be a great asset to the Badgers.

 

 

Dan and Rebecca

http://casa-de-terrible.blogspot.com/

 

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