Aftermath

Our power was out all day. That meant no radio, no TV, no lights and no Internet. It's like we were Amish for a day.

I'll go out tomorrow and try to take photos of the trees that fell in our forest and post them. Until then, here's a little recap of what Hurricane Irene did to our neighborhood and our garden:

The Fairy Castle in drier days

• The pond rose about 50 feet up the shore to the edge of an old stone fireplace that neighbor girls once named the Fairy Castle.
• The canoe righted itself and filled with water and fortunately didn't sunk.
• The blueberry bushes that fed the birds and deer so abundantly this summer were under a foot of water .
• The mulch trail to the pond was coated with an array of spores and mushrooms.
• The dead tree behind our house that we've been getting estimates for removing didn't fall. (Whew!) 
• Two trees fell down crisscrossing each other across the trail -- one with its roots sticking up.
• Two more trees fell into other trees and were resting in the crook of their branches.
• At dinner time our neighbor came by to tell us of yet another tree that he heard fall, roots and all -- it was enormous.
• There are hundreds of broken branches strewn everywhere. You could hear chain saws working away all around the neighborhood.
• The bridge across the pond was flooded so all traffic was detoured down our little street and turned it into a major thoroughfare. 
• The front lawns of several houses near the bridge were under water. 
• Raspberries were blown off the bushes and were being eaten by tiny slugs and other bugs.
• Half of the remaining raspberries were water-logged, soggy and tasteless -- yellow jackets and horseflies were gobbling them up. When I shook the bushes to shoo them away so I could pick, they didn't budge. The must have thought it was still storming.
• The cage of volunteer Roma tomatoes toppled over and a dozen green ovals were scattered across the ground.

Last night, while we were preparing for the storm and a possible blackout, we decided to defrost and bake the two remaining raspberry turnovers I blogged and raved about in July. They were just as heavenly as the first time -- and this time I remembered to take a picture. Irene wasn't all bad.

Raspberry Turnovers -- YUM!