Chased Home By Hurricane Sandy

We got chased home from our SANDY Family Reunion in Virginia a day early by Hurricane Sandy! Quite ironic since the whole "Al SANDY Family" planned a Birthday / Halloween / Site Seeing /Reunion this past weekend in Williamsburg Virginia! It was the first time we were all together since 2008. Even though our trip was cut short, I am glad to be back safely in New Jersey! Many of the roads we traveled from Virginia last night are now closed. I just heard they are experiencing snow and blizzard conditions in North Carolina and Ohio. It's just crazy!
 

Jerry got everything secured on the home front over the weekend.

Rudy thinks it's great. He loves the rain.

I had to call him in at lunch time.

He is warm and dry under his waterproof blankie.

If it gets too nasty, I'll have to lock him in.

Jerry's making sure the paddocks are draining as well as possible.

No need to close the other horse  in!

Princess Rita remains high and dry in her stall.

We sprung a leak in the barn, but so far Hurricane Sandy has been very kind to us.

Emergency conditions prevail in our area and all along the Eastern and now central part of the U.S. We have heard from the township, cable company and the electric company to expect outages. I am trying to get this out as fast as possible. It is blowing and raining like a bear!
Wanted you all to know we are fine and I hope you all are too! I never thought I'd be living through a major hurricane named SANDY!

Stay safe! 

X ♥ O

Good Riddance Hurricane Irene

It's the day after the debut of Hurricane Irene here in Southern New Jersey.

Irene did show mercy on us. No injury was inflicted on our various critters and damage to our property was minimal. We tied up the butterfly bushes which protected them from harm. We took down all the hummingbird feeders last night at dark. The first crack of dawn brought the hummers back  to us in droves. By 6:00 am. we had the feeders back up and we were back in business for our famished customers.

The horses, cats, turkeys and deer all seemed to be very hungry but overall in very fine shape.

Irene dumped some huge amounts of water on us however. 

The lot across the street is overflowing with run off.

The bad news is,  that it drains underground through our basement!

We have 4 sump pumps and a wet-vac going in the basement now.  Just trying to keep up with it is a full time job. Looks like our main priority now will be keeping up with the flood. I'm afraid we won't be getting much free time or sleep over the next week or so. 

Good Riddance Hurricane Irene!

Getting Ready For Hurricane Irene

Jerry and I have spent the last day and a half preparing for Irene.

The house looks so empty after we removed all the shepherd's hooks,

chairs, decorations and hanging baskets.

We still have some of the hummingbird feeders hanging.

The little birds don't like the new arrangement one single bit.

And I can't say I blame them.

I don't think anyone has visited this one that I tied to the railing yet.

Jerry's workshop looks like a nursery.

There are plants everywhere.

His fishing pole rack makes a great hanger.

We moved the truck and trailer to a safe spot away from the trees.

Topped off the water trough . . . 

Jerry did some grating in front of the horse stalls

so that the water would hopefully drain away.

Put plexi-glass in Rita's west side window. . . 

Moved the metal pony into the barn . . .

And now we are all just waiting and hoping that Irene will be kind to us

and keep moving farther out to sea.