Deja Storm

Last year at this time our state was still busy licking its wounds from Tropical Storm Irene, a weather event severe enough that had my maternal grandparents still been alive and roughly 100 years old, it would have easily rated as the worst natural disaster to hit Vermont in their lifetimes. Now here we are some 14 months later waiting on Ms. Sandy. While current projections have Sandy delivering only a glancing blow to this eastern part of the state in particular, Irene and the events of 2011 mean that Vermonters will never view Hurricanes or their degraded brethren quite the same way ever again.

All one can do is prepare. We are fortunate that the vast majority of the buildings on the farm — the smaller Stud Barn being a notable exception — all have propane driven backup generators, so loss of power is not the greatest short term worry we have. Of greatest concern is that the winds which are forecast to gust up to 50 knots will either take down trees and the fences that are near them or turn anything unsecured outside into a missile of sorts. To that end all outdoor furniture both here at the house and near the barns has been brought inside. All of the outdoor hay feeders that we have in the vast majority of our paddocks have been tipped over and laid  on their sides to make them a less attractive target, though granted at 200 to 300 lb. each they’re not likely to move too much anyway now that they’re in their lowest possible profile. Time will tell. At this point the plan is to lock down the entire herd, at least within corrals if not inside the barns themselves, by tomorrow evening and ride out what is supposed to be the worst of it between then and sometime late Tuesday. I hope any of you reading this that are in the path of the so-called Frankenstorm have made the necessary precautions so that you can get through it all in relative calm and safety. I’ll update the news here on the farm over the next few days both here and through the Farm’s Twitter feed. Be safe everybody…

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