GET READY FOR OCTOBER 1ST!

Autumn in Onley

 at the Train Station in Onley

October 1, from 10-2

Rain Date – Oct 2 from 1-4

 

Build a Scarecrow – 10 AM

(Bring some old clothes to stuff)

  

Pumpkin Painting – 11 AM    

Pet Parade  - Noon  

Pumpkin Toss - 1 PM

Tractor (mower) Parade - 1:30

     

and PLAY with TRAINS!

Shore’s Best Bake Sale

  And Cake Raffle

Coffee, iced tea

Bean bag toss

!!! Prizes !!!

Family FUN!

Ident-a-Kid

and PLAY with TRAINS!

SOME NAUGHTY JOKES

Just thought I would share some not so nice jokes… Shame on me.

A woman asks a man who is traveling with six children,

"Are all these kids yours?"

The man replies, "No, I work in a condom factory and these
are customer complaints".

*********************

A young boy asks his Dad, "What is the difference between confident and confidential?"

Dad says, "You are my son, I'm confident about that.

Your friend over there, is also my son, that's confidential."

********************* Nominated as the best short joke this year..

A three-year-old boy was examining his testicles while taking a bath.

"Mom" he asked, "are these my brains?"

"Not yet," she replied.

NAME THE FLOWER, BUILD A TREE

OK, before peeking at the rest of the pictures, do you have any idea what this precious tiny flower is? A BIG clue is the word tiny. So I will skip to building a tree... I am in the process of making trees for our train layout for the Train Station. This first tree is in the very beginning stages. See the green stuff? That is surrounding a "branch" that I hope will stay glued in place to balance the tree. A few real leaves are still attached and will be removed before attaching the foliage from the bag. I have never used ready made stuff before, always made my own back in my model making days. The second tree is more or less finished... I will make a base out of plaster - it is currently sitting in a block of plasticine. These trees will go with a O size train. I hate those bottle brush trees or the plastic snap together trees that all look alike. I like to make my own from real bushes.

So, back to the little flowers... did you guess what they were? These shots are of them in the little herb garden potting tray, next to the sage and thyme. I am sure my plants out in the garden have bloomed before and I just never noticed, but this one is on the patio. I was shocked to see the precious little flowers. Sniff, sniff, can you smell the sage, thyme and the ___________?

SOME THOUGHTS, SOME GRATITUDE

It has been a crazy couple of weeks, but that is not a complaint… not even really an excuse for not staying in touch, but time has been short for blogging with so many other things to worry about. I have tried to keep up with some of you in private emails as blogger is being uncooperative again. Once again, storms have changed people’s lives. My cousin lost their cabin on the Susquehanna River up near Wilkes Barre, PA. But, that could have been their primary residence, so while a serious loss, they still have their home and all their belongings. And no one lost their lives – most important of all. Check off that little box on your gratitude list!

Normally this is a hectic time of year anyway, tons of things to do as summer winds down, a dozen events going on before it gets too cold, sometimes having to run from one event in the morning to another in the afternoon or evening. I feel like my friend, Ralph, bless his heart, who is running for Senate again and is trying to be in 5 places at once and still maintain a practice at Children’s Hospital. As I listened to his schedule yesterday, I just shook my head wondering how he does it all. But, he is much younger and in better health and has a team making all his arrangements. I am feeling my age! But keeping going keeps me going. Does that make any sense to you? I know if I quit and put my feet up, I won’t be getting back up.

My auntie up in the Wilkes Barre area had to be evacuated. This was not an easy thing to do as she was one of the hard heads who stayed in her house back during Hurricane Agnes (39 years ago) and had folks coming by boat bringing food and water to her thru the 2^nd floor window. But, for some folks, Lee brought more flooding and destruction than Agnes. The river went up to 43 feet. It was a shallow muddy puddle when I crossed it this summer to see her. But, as of last night, she is back in her apartment in her senior apartment building, full of praise for her son and DIL for treating her like royalty (which she is, of course!) My only regret is I was not up there to do anything for her – BUT, my house (up there) is on the other side of 2 rivers with lots of flooding creeks in-between Wilkes Barre and White Haven.

Here on the shore, actually, up in Delaware, one little town received 14 inches of rain in about 6 hours. I have been in the Seaford area when it was under water, drove home from PA in 9 inches of water on Route 13 just before they closed it. Talk about timing! That was June, 2006. We saw cars with water up to their roofs in parking lots, drove past houses with water up to the front doors. So sad!

Anyway, it is very busy here taking care of my own commitments and worrying about family and friends. So, if I neglect you a little bit, forgive me. I will catch up maybe sometime in November!

I hope you have made out all right in the storms!

AFTER THE STORM (HURRICANE IRENE)

It almost seems dumb to post pictures about Hurricane Irene’s visit to the shore, or at least my little corner of the Shore, in view of what has happened and is still happening in Vermont and is still happening in Paterson, NJ. Who would have thought? Days after Irene rolled thru NY and Vermont, my cousins in NY are still without power, and friends in Vermont are cut off from the rest of the state as roads washed out on either side of their farm. So showing a few leaves and twigs on the yard and sidewalk is almost embarrassing. I lost a 12 foot maple that was growing off the stump of the old maple I lost in Ernesto(?) I think. And a gum tree came down over the road out front across the street from me, but it was small enough the town cop was able to get it off the road and keep the road open. He lost his cell phone in the process. But I helped him find it the next day when we moved the tree again. He said it would dry out! So, there is not much to see. Others lost power for considerable amounts of time. Then, again, how does one show a power outage? It has been so dry here that the 6 ½ inches of rain that fell in my yard was soaked up in a heart beat.

Friends with houses on the water had water in their yards, but almost no one got water in their houses. One friend got 2 inches in the house. Floyd gave them 18 inches, I think she said. So who would have figured NY, NJ, and Vermont would have had all that flooding?

Remember the potting bench I built? I did take the top shelf off when they told us we were to prepare for 100 mph or higher winds… the bottom with its ugly 4x4 legs never moved a centimeter, nor did the trash can filled with potting soil from the potato bags.

As many of you know, earlier in the week, we were being warned of a Cat 3 hurricane, so we almost evacuated to our place in the Poconos… that would have been a disaster. They lost power for a day or more. Roads were washed out, a bridge or two, but nothing like NY and VT. Nothing like the flooding in Paterson, NJ.

But, best of all, dumb as it sounds, the little cats were only mildly inconvenienced during the storm. No cages… no scary ride in the van… no scary new house, new smells, and then no power anyway! True, Punkin was on “guard duty” and probably did not get much sleep, just a cat nap every now and then, but he protected the back door with all his might, bless his heart. Spook hid out under the picnic table in a big waterproof bed out of the wind.

Yes, staying home was the best plan – this time. And there was this little present blooming after the storm… Now we are watching Katia………

Hurricane Irene

Just a quickie to let you all know we are riding this one out here in Onley. The rain started during the night - we have had 1 inch so far. The wind has not started, tho there have been gusts over 35 mph recorded at the airport, 5 miles away from here.

As many of you know, I started packing up and putting things away as far back as last Monday. It is amazing how much junk sits out where a wind of 100 mph can pick it up and blow it away, to say nothing of my carport that often acts like a wind tunnel anyway. Even tho it is attached to the house, if you have seen this blog in the winter time, you will know that does not mean things don't get wet. I have posted pictures of the van covered with snow while parked on the carport, so I was not surprised to see the van dripping wet this morning when I got up.

As many of you also know, we were expecting to evacuate - the plan was to leave Friday morning... the cages are in the van, cat food, kitty litter, people food, water, but I have brought my medicine bag (toiletries, Rx, etc) and suitcase back inside. So, we were all set, but Spook had other plans. He did not show up for breakfast, so I could not catch him. And I was not going to leave him behind. Then, too, I did not know what I was going to do with 4 cats up there in a house smaller than what I have here, tho I considered taking 2 of the cats over to my house and separating them that way. Basically, I did not get any sleep Thurs night trying to figure it all out. Having outside cats that HATE being inside a house is a problem. Punkin is elderly, he was not young when he arrived here during Hurricane Isabel with a young 3 or 4 month old Spook by his side. Punk has health issues, so that would have to be addressed. Even bringing him in the house here has been a problem, and I bet if one brought Spook in, he would smash thru the glass windows in an attempt to get back outside. Then there is Hadji - if you read my blog regularly, you know he is diabetic, but currently is maintained without insulin. The stress of an 8 hour trip in the van might set him over the edge. The cats have never been in the van for more than 10-15 minutes, just long enough to get to the vet or home.

Then there is MY personal problem - fear. I hate driving, hate bumper to bumper traffic, am terrified of interstates, and then there is the physical strain of that long drive even without all the evacuation traffic (150,000 tourists from Ocean City, MD, alone!) as all the seaside people are being told to get out. Then there is the physical problem of carrying the cages and cats into a house, especially down the steps into my house if I stashed 2 cats there and kept 2 in my uncle's house. See why I could not get any sleep? Putting up with 24 hours of hurricane seemed easier. I guess we will know in a day or 2 if that was the case.

So, here we are. As I type this, Irene is still south of the Outer Banks of NC. Hatteras has reported winds at 87 mph. We are praying the path jogs a bit more in a easterly direction and takes the eye a bit further off our coast. There has been a mandatory evacuation of our islands and coastal communities, both seaside and bayside. I live on what is called the spine of the peninsula, a half mile east of the RR tracks with an elevation of approximately 35 feet above sea level. we are about 3 miles (as the crow flies) from the ocean and 3 miles from the open Chesapeake Bay... but only 2 miles from the tidewater marsh on seaside and 2 miles from the harbor in Onancock Creek. If you draw a line due west from Richmond, you will find Onley. Irene is currently a Cat 1, not a 3 as she was yesterday, and for that I am ever so grateful.

I do want to thank those of you who have called and emailed to see how we are doing. If we have power tomorrow, I will post again. If not - well, I will when the power does come back and I have the time. Thanks for your prayers.

EARTHQUAKES AND HURRICANES! OH MY!

BORING IS NICE. I can enjoy a life without adrenalin pumping moments. I really can. Yesterday was a break from the norm, and not enjoyable. Of course, things could always have been worse. As you probably know, I used to live in the Middle East. I have been in serious heavy duty earthquake country. In the spring of my Senior year in high school for example, we had a major quake over in the eastern part of Turkey. We decided to skip our Prom and have a sock hop instead and donate all that money we would have spent on gowns and flowers, tuxedos and such, renting a ballroom, etc. and just play some music in the gym, and send that money to one of the towns devastated by the quake. A group of us bought food and blankets and water containers, a few tents, tools, rope... I don't remember what all we gathered and bought. My dad had a truck and our next door neighbr had a VW bus. We loaded up and headed out to the east, a small motorized caravan that some of us called our senior class trip! The trip took 2 days to get there since there were no paved roads outside the city. The town we took our stuff to was mostly a pile of rubble. It was the first time I had ever seen anything like that. It was heartbreaking. So our little earthquake (5.9) yesterday was interesting but not really scary. I do not want a repeat anytime soon, but we are almost 200 miles from the epicenter that was about 34 miles NW of Richmond. Sadly, my first thought was that someone had bombed Norfolk. Or that a nuclear power plant in NJ had blown up. What sad times we live in.

But, as I said, yesterday was not boring. When the earthquake rumbled thru, I was taking a break from preparing for a hurricane, putting all the birdfeeders away, bungying the adirondacks together, moving all the small objects that tend to migrate to the carport. Hurricanes scare me. We are only 35 feet above sea level, no mountains to protect us... hurricanes are scary. So today will be spent battening down the hatches, rechecking the hurricane food supply, filling the van with gas and a couple cages, just in case... and longing for that boring "nothing ever happens here" mode to return.