Ike Roars Through the Woods, and More.

This past week has been labor intensive, (Yeah, I'm pooped!) because the remnants of Hurricane Ike roared through here Sunday morning with sheets of rain, followed by a wind that I thought would deposit me in Oz, if I dared to go out into it. (Official word is the wind was 70 miles per hour!)

So, I didn't go to church Sunday morning, listening to the wind sounding like a freight train, instead, and watching the trees dropping their limbs all over the yard, while in the house the lights flickered on and off a dozen times.

I never did lose power though, thank goodness, but many folks around here did, including Eileen, who lives 14 miles east of me. When her power came back on five hours later, she discovered that her Cable TV did not, which made her a bit cranky!

Anyway, later in the day I went out and surveyed things, and began cleaning up the debris left by Ike. My neighbor Connie's husband, Roger came by to check on me, and he went up and down our narrow gravel road with a chainsaw, clearing debris and tree limbs off, so people could drive on it. And I have been cleaning debris here every day, since Sunday, and have finally made a dent in it, thank goodness. I left a couple of big limbs for Greg to clean up and cut up with his chainsaw. Since this house sits in the middle of the woods surrounded by trees on all sides, I was thankful that none of them hit the house! And as you can see in the picture of my front, most of it looks fairly cleaned up now, but I cropped the picture to leave out the scraggly stuff still laying around. :-)

On Monday I took a break and went to town, and heard other people's account of Ike. Many still did not have the power back, some homes and cars had been damaged by trees, but overall it wasn't real bad. Eileen's Cable TV was finally working again, she told me happily, while we lunched at the Chinese Restaurant. Then it was back to cleaning up more of the debris. The scraggly stuff left will be mulched with the lawnmower.

The weather has been heavenly since, and this Sunday promises to be sunny and pleasant, and I look forward to going to church and lunching with church friends again.

Of course, the problems caused by Ike around here were minor compared to so many people who were devastated by it in Texas. My thoughts and prayers are with all of them. I can't even imagine how they're coping with all the devastation.


I also want to thank all my friends who have signed on as my followers! That is so very sweet of you, but how did you do that? As soon as I figure out how to become your follower, "I will follow you," just like song says.

:-) Any hints on how I can do that, would be appreciated, as well as hints on how to show my followers on my sidebar. I am so blogger challenged!

And I want to thank Patti and Grams for the beautiful awards they gave me. I posted them on my sidebar. Thank you again, friends.

And thank you for visiting. Have a wonderful weekend, and a great week ahead, everyone.

Blessings from the woods!