Unscathed...

We are thankful to report that we are on the back side of Sandy, and most in our immediate area have come through relatively unscathed!

The rain began on Sunday evening, and it rained throughout the day yesterday, with winds picking up as the day progressed.

We had one hiccup yesterday afternoon, when our lights began flickering, and we lost power in parts of the house and barn, but not others.  We were a bit puzzled by this, and decided to use the generator for evening milking.  We couldn't milk without consistent power...not good for the cows or the equipment!  So, Jim hooked up the tractor to the generator and when he started it up, all the lights and equipment worked just fine!

We milked a little early last night, just to get finished and out of the barn as soon as possible, as the winds were really picking up.  As we milked down the first two rows, a PPL (electric company) truck showed up at the pole out front.  Jim went and talked to them, to explain our problem.  They checked the transformer...it was fine...they  checked the meter, and discovered that we weren't getting good voltage.  (this explains the intermittent outages we were having)  The problem was where the wires attach to the house above the meter...

A relatively simple (minus the weather) fix, and we were good to go!

The worst of the winds were from around 5pm Monday until early this morning here.  I don't know how high they got, but not nearly as high as were predicted, for which we are very thankful!   The rainfall total this morning around 5am was about 3.75".

As we milked this morning, we noticed the weather calming.  I looked at the weather reports, and saw that the eye of the weakening storm was almost overhead.

The worst damage here?

This limb came down on the driveway...

...and some ruts in the yard where the PPL truck got stuck when fixing the wires last evening...

I'd say that's nothing to complain about right here!!

We are to have windy conditions the rest of today into tomorrow, along with more rain, but we are very, very thankful that we didn't feel the effects of Sandy here, that were predicted.

There are many others, especially along the coast, who were hit very hard by this storm.  I can only imagine how they must be feeling, and the damage they are left to deal with!  

Her Name Is Sandy...

Her name is Sandy...

In case you haven't heard...she's in the Atlantic, heading our way.  I'd really rather not meet her, but it looks like we'll be seeing  a lot of her the beginning of next week.  Hurricane Sandy is expected to wreak havoc in the Mid Atlantic.  As of now, she is expected to hit land in southern to mid New Jersey sometime on Monday.  That puts us right in her path, and we are expected to have a substantial amount of rain, and potentially damaging winds.

I tend to worry...yes, I know I shouldn't, but it's something I struggle with.  And yes...I'm worried about this one.  Not so much the rain, but the wind.  We're as ready as we can be...the generator is ready to go...we have plenty of diesel fuel...so now we get to wait and see what happens.

We are so very, very thankful that all the harvest is now finished...as of yesterday!  The combine was here on Wednesday and did the corn and beans, and Jim finished baling hay (6th cutting) last night.

Here the combine is full, sitting in the field waiting for the grain cart to come back from emptying it's load into the grain truck...

Just starting to fill up the grain truck for what I think was the last time...

After they finished with our corn, they put on the bean header and combined our soybeans as well.  Are we ever glad that's finished!  Any corn and beans that are still standing will look a little different after next week's storm.

I don't have all the final numbers, but we're happy with the harvest.  We had corn on three different farms, and the corn here at home yielded the best...an average of 190 bushels per acre.  We don't have bpa on the beans, but Jim was very pleased.

So for now, we'll batten down the hatches and hang onto our hats!