Things we did during the hurricane...

Playing a mean game of Bingo....
Little Man just bought some new Lego Starwars. He loves them.
Settling down for the evening and trying to cool off before bed. It was coolest in the living room so that's where we started sleeping.
Notice the boots are on! 20 minutes later, Little Man was on his way to the ER...

Hurricane damage and cleanup...

So here is some of what happened here:

The tree that fell...it sat right near the chicken shed, covering the whole corner with lovely shade.
Ummmm....I don't think that's supposed to be there like that... says Pedro. That muddy spot is where the goat shed used to sit. It was lifted up over the fence (which you can't really see, but it is a livestock 'no climb' fence).
As of right now only one side has a little repair needed. Not bad considering...
Yesterday since it was pretty nice out, we decided to take care of that tree. No, I'm not barefoot, but flipflops don't really count as protective footwear...then again, I'm not sure that there are many shoes out there that would qualify as protective chainsaw footwear! Yeah, I'm not wearing pants either, or safety goggles, but I am wearing ear plugs and gloves! That's a plus right there. I'm definitely not going to be hired by OSHA or be the poster child for safety awareness!
Yes honey, you are the man! LOL

We're alive and now have electricity....

(Sophie's idea of 'high and dry'! Sitting on top of our water barrels during the storm so that she could look inside, knowing we could see her, so she could remind us that she was out there suffering instead of inside with us! She sure looks like she's suffering huh?! LOL )

Well, Gustav smacked the mess out of us! New Orleans was left with some wind damage and power outage...but no one was really there. Baton Rouge was clobbered by winds and rain. We had a lot of flooding all over. It took us 4 days to get our power back on. Not bad at all considering they were talking 1-2 weeks. Although I'm sure it will be that long for those that live even further out than we do.

(our front yard a couple of hours after the rain had slowed...it was worse than that)

We lost a couple of trees, one of which could have really damaged our portable horse shelter. When it fell, most of the weight was on the fence rail and that kept it from smashing the shelter in. It is bent, but hey, no holes in the tarp and no major damage done. Nicely enough though, a huge gust of wind sent it rolling back the other direction and back onto the ground! It made it easier to cut it up without it damaging anything else. Unfortunately for the chickens in that pen, it was the only thing providing them shade beside their coop. I guess we'll have to plant some more, but they won't be big for quite some time. The wind also picked up the goat shelter that I made a few years ago from pallets, 2x4's and tin. It shoved it up against the fence, sent it up and over the fence, leaving it upside-down in the horse pasture...I can't put it back in there as of now...we're thinking about what to do with it at this point.

I'm very glad that we purchased our generator. I did realize that we needed another extension cord (so we didn't have to move them around so much), some more snacky type foods, and if the power is going to be out for an extended amoung of time, a window unit would be awesome! On Thursday it got hot...the box fans were just moving hot air...ugh!

Little Man managed to get himself run to the ER on Tuesday night. How? Well, it had finally stopped dumping an inch and a half of rain an hour on us, so we let the kids outside to play in the puddles with the firm understanding that boots must be worn. They did pretty good and we sat out and watched them. I came in to cook dinner and Steve came in to grab his cup of water. In the time it took him to walk in, grab it and walk out, Little Man had chucked his shoes off while on the swings and decided to fly off into the water. Not a good idea he came to find out...as Steve was walking out, Little Man was running to the house screaming. He was bleeding like a stuck pig from his heel. I snatched him up, hustled to the bathroom to wash it and then got it pressure wrapped. As we were going out the door I grabbed the camera...Little Man simply stated that 'now was not a good picture taking time'. LOL... We headed off to the ER, that although they had minimal power, were actually accepting people. There was no one there though so we got right in. Turned out that he had an almost 1/2" deep wound to his heel and a good chunk taken from above that. We think we found what cut him and it was a piece of strong wood that must have been sticking up just right as he landed. They didn't stitch it, just flushed it out, put some antibiotic ointment on it, some steri strips, and a wrap. He's also on crutches which of course he thinks are cool. Boys! He wanted to run all over the house on them, but with all the extension cords I could just see him tripping and busting his noggin...after all, the kid was cursed with my dexterity. Poor guy...

I don't know if I mentioned a few weeks ago that we had a broody hen. That crazy hen sat on a sand nest for three days with nothing under her just determined to hatch out something. We felt sorry for her and gave her some eggs. Poor thing got scared to death with the storm and they started peeping on Monday, that she just up and left the nest. I found her on Tuesday morning sitting in the mud, under the eaves of the chicken shed, soaking wet. I got her back in there and put a crate over her so she couldn't leave. That worked, but being new to the whole deal, she squashed a few eggs that were hatching, two were duds (don't ask how I found out, eeeew!), and some just didn't make it. She had two really good little peeps, but one got stepped on by another critter. Poor peep. Now she has one and it's so funny to see them interacting. Too cute and it was something nice to have happen during the storm.

(Miss Broody hen telling me to buzz off!)

(Too cute! Mama is showing Peep how to forage. That peep is only a day old.)

That was our week in a nutshell. This morning I headed to our little town to get a few things and drove past Wally World. I was thinking of stopping there, but that thought quickly left my brain when I saw that they were still limiting the amount of people going into the store and that there was quite a line. I called Steve to tell him about it and he remarked that they may not have had enough employees to man the floors. Um...do they ever have enough employees there? There are always lines at the registers and there is rarely an employee around to help you if you have a question. I worked there for a number of years and it was no better then either...if you have a nice one near you, be thankful. I have a friend who works there and I just love her, she is great, but there are others there that just complain and act as if the job is beneath them. Anyways...I got the things I needed at LaBlanc's. It was very busy, but they were stocking shelves as quick as possible and checking people out with smiles on their faces. Just made my day.

Now we're watching Hurricane Ike...

Gustav update...

It's blowing quite good out there and raining sporadically. Power is still on, but I don't expect that to last long. All the kids are still sleeping and I've got to head out to take care of the farm animals before it starts pouring again.

This morning's hurricane update...it's supposed to gain strength again as it crosses the Gulf. Right now it's a Category 3 at 120 mph winds. The interstates here are bumper to bumper with people leaving.

Gustav...

So my kids are riding along in the truck today while we heading to Baton Rouge to attend a baptism for a friends child. We were discussing the past hurricane, how many people would be staying behind at the coast and then complain because no one would come get them, what we've done to prepare, and the course of this new hurricane. The kids were discussing all the different ways to pronounce Gustav and Steve piped up with Gus-short u and tave-long a. I laughed because being from the south and hearing people pronounce things can be pretty darn funny especially if they have that twang (and some have southern drawls that are exagerated)...so anyways...I laugh and then bring forth my best redneck twang and say: Hey yaaaw'll. Hurricane Gustave (short u, long a) is a comin'. Yaaaaw'll better git pr'pared!" LOL...the kids just started hee-hawing with laughter and then proceeded to copy me for the next 15 miles....had to finally hush them lest they keep talking like that when we got to the church building. People already think we're weird homeschoolers, LOL!

All of you on the coastline, I hope you're getting out and to safer ground. I just heard that evacuations were mandatory now in New Orleans. We're staying here though. We've got all the necessary items to keep us up and running, eating good, hydrated, and atleast somewhat cool. Locks are on the gates to prevent anyone from walking in and taking anything, but with Hunter on guard, I don't think a soul would attempt to come in this place. He is becoming so protective just like we had hoped. He's very obedient though (mainly to me).

Anyways...we'll update after the storm. Now it's off to find something to make for dinner on the grounds tomorrow at church. We do expect an influx of people to our ward since there are only two wards opened tomorrow. Many of the wards have been closed due to the Contra-flow (both highways being opened to only allow traffic to leave the evacuated areas) so we'll see...

Thanks Hurricane Humberto!

Here's the weather in our neck of the woods today. YUCK! So no soccer practice today as of right now...bummer, since my team doesn't practice but once a week...and today is that day...

I have to run out and feed all my animals in this mess in a minute. I'm normally done by 8 am, but I've been putting it off to see if it'll clear up a little...no such luck so far. I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and head out there. (where's the rolling eyes icon when you need one!?)

We're going to take today and catch up on some reading for school and I've got to bake some more bread.