Happy Birthday Becky and Hurricane Sandy

Happy Birthday to my sister, Becky!   She's doing a great Birthday Project, so check her blog for a post about it coming soon. 


Seems we're getting a hurricane around here.....  We're on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, so we're going to get hit fairly hard.  I kept trying to will Sandy away, but she wouldn't listen.  So far we're getting some wind and a good bit of rain.  We found a new leak in our house....seems as soon as we repair one another one shows up...

But we're prepared here.  We've filled jugs and jars of water, since we're likely to lose power.  

And I got out lots of candles, lanterns/flashlights, and an oil lamp so I won't have to bumble around in the dark.

We also got the generator ready, the chainsaw is on standby, and we've got 2 coolers full of ice waiting in the mudroom.  Oh yeah, and we filled both bathtubs with water so we can flush the toilets.  We don't lose power very often, even during last year's hurricane (only lost power for 1 hour), or the crazy back to back blizzards we got in 2010 (more pics here), but we want to be ready just in case. 

Most of the animals are in the barn.  The goats...

The sheep (minus the 2 ram lambs, who are weathering the storm in the main pasture)...

Two of the rabbits (the two does are in a large hutch and have shelter from the storm)...

And Tucker the outdoor cat was in there somewhere.  The chickens are in their coop, and really mad at me for it.

The dogs are roughing it...

And our indoor cat is sleeping in front of the pellet stove right now.  They've got a tough life. 


I decided to be productive this morning and make some soap.  I'm so excited to cut into these batches tomorrow, because I tried some new oxide powdered colors, and I can't wait to see how they turn out.  The brown one at the top of the picture is Gingerbread. The middle one is Hot Cocoa, and the bottom one is an evergreen soap...I haven't picked a name for it yet. 

I'll try to update if anything interesting happens.  The worst is supposed to hit us this evening/tomorrow, so we'll see how it goes.  If you're on the east coast, stay safe!