As I am writing this post, we are experiencing the beginning of Hurricane Sally. Yesterday I did a good bit of washing because I needed to get all the laundry washed, dried and put away. I had clothes hanging all over the house because there was too much humidity outside to hang laundry. The hurricane southwest of us off shore barely moving forward.
I have lived long enough now to know the routine. Get all the laundry done, fill every vessel that will hold water to use for drinking, cooking and bathing.
I like to get things done before the storm and prepare for the power to go out or a water main break or anything that could happen that we can prepare for. There are plenty of things we cannot prepare for but this we can. Of course we hope these things will not happen but sometimes they do.
I filled the wash stands lavabos that we use for running water.
It is enough water to wash our hands and brush our teeth.
The other one here, crowded in by more laundry hanging to dry.
Then there is the possibility of sewage back up if there is too much rain. One of the hurricanes a few years ago caused all kinds of problems and people could not flush toilets. After I read about this in the news I decided we needed to have a back up plan for this too. So we keep wood shavings and a home made composting toilet to use for emergencies.
I filled the pitchers and so they are ready if needed.
I get anxious if the power goes out suddenly and I have nothing prepared so if I prepare ahead of time we just move on to our other option.
As the storm gets closer I am turning things off and just moving to what I call the old way. It actually feels more like the right way and this helps the transition.
It works for us...
We can still cook and wash dishes and read books and I can still sew on the old treadle. Charles has hand tools if he wants to work on a wood working project. I can even do laundry with the rain water that we are getting and when the weather clears and we have the clothesline for hanging clothing.
They are telling us that this hurricane is going to be a flood maker, possibly more than we are accustomed to with a hurricane. Sometimes these things are not as bad as they suggest but sometimes they are worse such as Hurricane Michael.
I have been watching and paying attention to what is going on as this storm has been spinning in the gulf. That is what we are suppose to do.
We are catching rainwater and actually all of our catchment barrels are full so it will move along as it would normally do but we will have some left over for watering when it is dry again.
I have started getting out again after more than six months of staying home other than doctor appointments. But only to go to cemeteries and it is good exercise for me.
I recently had the thought that since we still do not need to get out in public due to the covid virus that I would like to continue with doing the family tree and genealogy research.
Charles and I have been visiting the cemeteries to find the graves of our generations before us to fill in some of the missing information in our family tree. This is an excellent way to get that information from the inscriptions on the head stones. It is quite a challenge to find where many of the much older graves are located but we have recently found that several of Charles family have been nearby all this time and we did not know.
His Great Great Grandmother and her daughter and son in law and two others are buried in this very old cemetery. We are going to go back to do a charcoal rubbing on paper on several of the headstones that we cannot read. We did this on one at another cemetery and we were able to confirm the stone was the correct family member we were looking for.
I have been trying to cook a bit more nutritious since my activity level dropped during the virus shut in.
This is a omelet with some veggies..
Baked Salmon, organic brown rice, zucchini and okra....
Some fresh peas, collards and sweet potatoes, Yum... it was good.
And a very quick breakfast for Charles because he needed to leave early. Two boiled eggs and some warm flatbread.
I baked a hot milk cake to take to a family member for her Birthday... I cut up some fresh strawberries and put them in a container and packed it with a pint of cream.
And I made one for Charles as a surprise since he was going to have to smell the hot milk cake that he would not be able to taste when he took it to our family member. :)
I know some of you that read my blog are in the path of Hurricane Sally, I will keep you in my prayers along with our daughter that lives in Pensacola Florida and that is very close to where the eye of this storm may cross.
Grandma Donna
