| 07-21-04
After The Storm
At last! We have electricity. It was difficult trying to make do on a generator. We were running 3 houses off of one 5000 watt generator. We would run the freezer at night and the refrigerator during the day. By doing |
|
| that we were able to
get through without loosing one item. Taking showers was an experience
in its self. We could not run the hot water heater, so it was cold
showers for everyone. It is amazing how fast you can take a shower when
you do not have hot water.
We are thankful we did not suffer anymore damage than we did. I had my garage door bent in the middle. I thought I might have lost it, but when the rain stopped, I pushed on the bent place, and it popped right back in place. The storm was supposed to only have 75 mph winds in it. Instead it hit with 114 mph winds with gusts up to 145. The chickens did just fine in the storm, but the vegetables did not fair too good. Most vegetable plants lost all of their leaves, and many were completely uprooted. The only thing that survived was the okra and the cream peas. They both looks pretty good. When it dries up we are going to clean the garden spots, and plant the fall crops. I was glad of the okra surviving, because we are developing a white okra. We had already started to let the selected pods go to seed and did not want to lose them. I will plant another crop of this white okra for the fall crop and then two more crops next year. I was very pleased with the raised beds. They did not ever get under water like they did earlier this year. We had worked trying to raise them up 12 more inches, and it seems to have worked. The no-dig beds did not fair good at all. So far I am disappointed in them. It seems the plants do not do quite as well in them as in the bio-intensive type of beds. Also they settle down much more. I am going to keep my promise and try them for two years though before passing judgment on them. I hope none of you ever have to go through a severe storm as we did this past week. It did prove to us that we made a good decision when we built our home out of metal. There were so many homes that were distorted here in our area. Some of them looked like they would never suffer damage. There were so many roofs lost and but buildings distorted. Most mobile homes were distorted. Thankfully no one was injured. There were five boats that sank with full crews, but all managed to escape safely. I was even able to mow the yard this morning for the first time since the storm hit. Happy Gardening Byron Tumlinson T-N-T Farm
|
