Ready for Sandy

Well, I think we’re as ready as we can be!

The winds are whipping – probably at a steady 30-35 mph now witih gusts over 40.  The rain is relatively light.  

We let the sheep out grazing for as long as we thought we could today, but eventually made the call to bring them in to the barn.  

That was the LAST thing they wanted to do!

Here I am with a treat for them – and here they are, going the total opposite direction they’re supposed to be going!  

Gee – the barn looks warm and inviting to me!

But finally they got tired of running around in the wind and rain and decided to check out that pile of hay awaiting them inside.

 

Whatever you do, boys, DON’T open that door!

 

 

We then proceeded to bring in the rams to their small barn.  As soon as they got in the barn, Drover started butting Boomer, so we’re giving them some space and leaving them have access to the barn or out in the pen.  They’re tough guys, I’m sure they’ll be ok.

 

The main reason for confining the animals is two fold.  Last hurricane we ended up with a fence badly damaged.  Had they been out in the pasture, they may have escaped.  Also, having them out in the pasture puts them at risk of injury from flying debris or trees falling.  

 

The  hens are still in their house, oblivious to the outside conditions!  We’ve brought them some snacks to keep them busy indoors all day, and they’ve been kind enough to keep providing us with eggs today!

 

Here in the house we’ve filled bathtubs, got the generator fueled and ready to go, we’ve filled pots and pans with water and hurricane lamps at arms’ reach.  We’re expecting power outages worse than our 5 days without power with hurricane Irene, as the damage will be much more widespread in this storm.

 

The yard is cleared.  The bunnies are in their giant hutch in our garage.  

 

One of our ornamental pear trees has already suffered some heavy damage and will probably not survive the 90 mph gusts tonight.  I keep thinking that our whole town’s — state’s landscape will be tremendously altered by this storm-of-a-lifetime.  

 

So we shall see what we will wake up to tomorrow, but for now we’re signing off the blog!  We pray for all in the northeast and mid Atlantic region to be sensible and safe!