Irma -thou art a heartless bitch

We expected the worst Irma and all her wrath but luckily once again we were spared.  

Irma in all her fury "smiling" at us

What we ended up was basically a Cat 1.  Many other places were not so lucky and some small islands were totally obliterated so again -VERY LUCKY.  The native Americans in the Tampa Bay area though expected the best they said the whole area is protected by native spirits!  Cool 👻 Also a cold front had come down from Canada and lopped off the whole west side of the storm. Thank you Canada!

We had been without power over two days, just came back on late last night.  I was so happy I cried!  It seems petty to be SO miserable without electricity when so many had it so much worse. It's amazing how much we rely on and are crippled without electricity.  I wished we lived off the grid.  When Jim was building his dome in upstate New York he did, and would bathe in an icy creek. We are partly off it, house is extremely well insulated and has no heating system and our own well water.  Our worst electric bill in the summer with air cranking is $125. That is a joke to most people. We paid much more when we lived in a tiny mobile home. The other day when it was 87 outside the inside of the domes with no AC available were 80 with the sun beating on them, actually not that bad, that is the power of the domes. And obviously there was no risk of losing a roof, we don't have one.

With hundreds of trees we did get some branches down and our long driveway was unrecognizable as a driveway.  But that was all.  Tara and family were lucky to not lose power AT ALL.  They were definitely in the minority. My brother and sister also lost power but my parents safely tucked away in their retirement home fared the best of all.  We went over for a hurricane party Monday with Kevin's parents who were visiting from Northern Maine. They had just put a deposit on a house not far from us.  They had no damage either and the storm although scary didn't damper their spirits for a move here.  If this is the we will get we can muddle through.

broken branch

wind whipped trees

driveway

downed tree