Windstorm 2008

I woke up in the middle of the wind storm.
The power was going on and off and on and off.
The thing that actually got me out of bed was the awful beeping of the UPS in the computer room.

Then I walked around the house looking for Kiwi, but I couldn't find him. I got worried when I realised that his sleeping clothes were left on the floor, and his jeans were gone. Where could he have gone! Without telling me! In bad weather!!

I was pretty grumpy, until I found him outside, sitting on the porch swing. That was mildly dangerous, I thought, because of all the flying debris and et cetera.

We ended up being really really really lucky because we did not have any property damage. Thank goodness I had paid to get all the trees on our property cut down earlier this year. Our electricity was out for about 27 hours. We did not lose any food because we kept the freezers (top mount and chest) closed.

We had just gone out the previous day to buy batteries (for personal and his work) so we had plenty of batteries to power a fan (for white noise while sleeping) and the handcrank radio, and flashlights. Oh plus we had tons of candles. I had slept pretty soundly (for my standards anyway) and actually felt cold if I had a body part left outside the blanket. But poor Kiwi was complaining he was overheating and the only relief was a random breeze coming from the windows.

I spent all Monday morning sitting outside on the porch swing listening to the radio and watching all the neighbourhood activity. The neighbour on our left had a largish (10 inches in diameter) branch fall off his front tree. I had to listen to him tell me that about 4 times. The neighbours 2 doors on the right had their entire family (I'm guessing its the entire family) chopping up THEIR fallen branch..

The neighbour directly across from us had their porch swing broken when it got blown off 6 feet away. Interesting to watch all the neighbourhood kids help carry the broken parts into the backyard while the woman actually living in the house only moved the car so the kids could get past it. I thought that was pretty lazy, but I don't know her and she might have a back problem or something.

The back alley has some fallen branches as well. Luckily the exit closer to our garage is clear, although some inconsiderate shit decided to dump some branches just about right in front of our garage.

Poeple! You have fallen branches, you cut it up, sweep it, bag it. Toss it, or burn it. Something. Don't drag it into your backyard and dump it over the fence like you do your old tires and mattresses and furniture and television sets. Bah.