Irene!!!

Nine days ago we were without power....listening to the wind and the rain whip around outside...thanks to Hurricane Irene.  It wasn't as bad as Hurricane Isabel 8 years ago...and certainly wasn't as bad as hurricanes are for so many people, but for folks in Richmond, VA it was a pretty big deal.  About 83% of Dominion Virgina Power's customers in the Richmond region were without power after the storm...that is 408,000 of 491,000 customers.  And we were one of them.  We weren't quite expecting this.  Having been through this before we prepared....bottled water, plenty of batteries...we moved the cars out of the reach of falling trees and we took in all the outdoor furniture, plants, etc.  But one is never happy to be without power...especially for days...and in our case this time it was only 4.  And we forgot to get ice!!!

I was a little ahead of the game....I made soup and beer bread before the power went out.....gruyere and rosemary beer bread and green chili and pepper jack beer bread.

And as soon as the power went out....at 3:05 p.m. we made Hurricanes...with little ice :(

Before it got dark I watched my bottle tree gasp its last breath.

This is what it looked like in its healthier days.

Sunday morning we woke up to no power but no real damage at our house.  Some of our neighbors were not as lucky.  We lost some branches and there were a lot of leaves and twigs to be cleaned up but nothing fell on the house or the fence.  We were lucky.

We made breakfast on the grill.

And then we waited...until Wednesday.  The best part of a long-term power outage is this.

An awesomely clean refrigerator!!!!