Sunday, September 14, 2008

Ike

Hurricane Ike came ashore hundreds of miles from our home in northwest Arkansas, yet we still felt his touch. We got up early Saturday morning to make phone calls to check on family in Houston. Love's sister and her kids and my niece and her husband all rode out Ike in place, with only a loss of electricity and a few shingles.

Ike blew into our corner of the world much weakened, but he still left his touch. Neighbors told us today that the wind roared last night, but we uncharacteristically slept through the whole thing. We awoke this morning to lots of pecans and pecan limbs on the ground, but no major tree losses. (We did see lots of broken Bradford pears on our way to church this morning -- good riddance.) We have the heaviest pecan crop on the trees we've had in years, but first Gustav and now Ike have left lots of those immature pecans on the ground. A good lesson for Skye -- never count your pralines until they're cooled.

Every pepper bush in the vegetable garden is now leaning at an angle somewhat less the 90 degrees, but none are uprooted. It was tempting to try to right them, but I decided the best course of action was leave them be -- they will surely grow as good crooked as upright.

The raspberries are all leaning, but once again: no harm done -- I think.

We did pick up ten pounds of windfalls from under the apple tree. I studied a bit and decided on applesauce. The Fujis aren't quite ripe yet, but the applesauce is fabulous. My only fear is that Skye is about to become an applesauce snob -- she has already declared this first batch far superior to the stuff from the grocery store.

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