So Irene came and went, and we survived. We did lose power at around 9:30 Saturday night and it didn’t come back until about 9:30 am on Sunday.
A lot of wind, a lot of rain, but we were spared any real damage. Our basement only got minimal flooding. I think our new gutters saved us, as we’ve seen it so much worse from so much less rain.
The only wind damage was to my sunflowers. They are pretty much all toast. I had to cut down half, the half that remain I think will have to come down shortly as they don’t look good. The tomatoes survived!
I don’t think our neighbors faired as well. I heard a lot of chainsaws yesterday in the distance. I guess they lost some trees. A huge tree fell aways down the road. Actually it split off the truck half way up!
We are still under a flood watch until tomorrow, but we are pretty safe here. Other people near creeks or rivers have it much much worse. Parts of Philly really got devastated.
So Hurricane Irene is approaching us now. It’s been raining pretty good since about 10am, mostly heavy spurts then lighter ones. Not many winds.
We really won’t be hit till late tonight into tomorrow AM.
I’ve done all I can to prepare. Everything important is off the floor in the basement or in plastic tubs. I have a feeling we may finally be cleaning that basement out now! I’ve also sandbagged the basement windows as best as I can, which often is where water runs in.
Picked up the entire yard as best as possible yesterday. Brought as much crap in that I could, the rest I put in trash cans and stored/braced.
We have been told to prep for power outages. We have a wood burning stove fortunately, so we can cook. I have to go rearrange the freezers now as best as possible – a tip I just heard on the news.
So if you live on the East Coast, you probably felt the quake we had today. Even though there is a giant fault line under the east coast, we haven’t historically been prone to quakes . . . till now? Over the past few years my mom/brother in Virginia have felt very tiny ones. I was home once with the dogs and I slept through one, but the dogs woke my mom up right before it happened. She said it just felt like a large truck going up the street.
However there was no sleeping through this one . . . mainly cause I was awake. It did center in Virginia, but was felt up and down the coast. Facebook friends all the way in Oh Canada! even felt it. West Coasters are of course laughing at us, saying our quake is nothing. But for those who never experienced something like this, it was shocking to scary.
To be honest, at first I thought my cats were fighting. My PCs started rocking as I sat in front of them (yes them) and I starting trying to find where the cats under the table fighting were. When I realized I couldn’t find them, I looked around. I noticed the bookshelf was rocking, and the hanging lights in the kitchen were swaying. So I texted John “Did we just have an earthquake?” . . . but before he could answer my brother in Virginia IM’d me that they just got hit too. It took 5 minutes for my facebook to begin exploding, and now the news has taken over TV.
Wow my first earthquake! We might have another due to the laughter from those on the West Coast 😉
Monster Mania 19 was just held here in Cherry Hill, and as always, I had a blast! This year I went more for the sci-fi fantasy people than horror, as many of them were childhood shows or movies. From Flash Gordon, to Buck Rogers, to the Princess Bride . . . oh and of course Sam Merlotte from True Blood!
So I took a good 40+ photos on the ghost walk. Not surprisingly, a lot were just crap. As the night wore on, it got more humid out, and the camera flash was reflecting off water drops in the air filling my photo with orbs that weren’t anything otherworldly. I could see them lighting up in the air in the flash. So I attempted to take as many photos without the flash, using only the available light, as I could. The issue there is the camera has to be completely still, otherwise you just get a blurred photo. I didn’t bring a tripod (next time!) so I had to use walls and trash cans to rest it on.
Of all the photos I took, here are some of the more unusual. In a few I adjusted lighting and contrast to make things easier to see, though I picked all the weirdnesses out of the original untouched photos fairly easily.
I took a lot of photos over the wall of the cemetery at Bruton Parish Church. In two I had a blueish-green orb moving across the back. In others, nothing. These were taken without any flash, so these aren’t water droplets.
Of note, the light streak, that is from a lantern nearby. Was that the cause of the orb? Was it a fluke? I don’t know!
Another two photos for comparison at the church. In the steeple window in one there is some bizarre light. I called it a visitor, because it actually reminded me of an alien!
I can’t recall which house this is. However the orbs here are all from moisture in the air. Few of the houses had any lighting inside at night. Something, or someone, looks to be sitting in the top right window, as if peering out in a rocking chair?
This too was from the church. The focus was the tombstone, which the guide told us people see images in the stone that had appeared over time (a skull, the family’s dog, etc). However in the window it looks like a man is peering out, with a colonial type ruffled color and coat on. Of course I may be stretching 🙂
Just a quick update. It’s our last day of vacation here in Williamsburg. Back to the real world tomorrow. Been having a lot of fun, even if it’s been 97-101 every day. Did Busch Gardens, Water Country USA, Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown. We are going on a ghost walk tonight, so maybe I’ll catch some ghosts on film? Below are a few photos from Williamsburg and Yorktown. I forgot my camera the day we went to Jamestown, so I had to use my phone. Fortunately I have a million photos from there from my trip 3 years ago. Mouse/Hover over a photo for a description of what the photo is of.
