{Photos} Hurricane Irene

Hurricane Irene hits Connecticut!

Thankfully my family survived the wrath of Irene without much damage and with power!  However, many of my friends and family members who live closer to the shoreline experienced a week without any power which includes water since many people have wells rather than city water.  I was able to take some pictures during the storm (after it slowed down a little) of my backyard and the tree across the street.  I was in complete awe at the force of the winds and how the two trees near our shed bent and swayed.  Many of the photos are blurry because of the rain but you get the idea.

 Notice how the tree is bending in the wind and the branches are almost touching the ground in some areas.

This tree is across the street from us.  Our neighbor even lost some shingles on his roof. 

After the storm I went outside to survey the damage!

 This is one of the trees on the side of our house that fell during the storm.  Thankfully it was pretty dead and only pulled the gutter out a little from the house.  Fixing the gutter is the only thing we had to fix on our house.

 Though you can't see it here, the large tree next to the shed had a ton of very large branches break and fall.  The tree behind it also had two large branches (think about 10 inches in diameter) fall but get caught up in vines and other branches.



There was a ton of cleanup and picking up of sticks to do this last week.  Thankfully, the first day of school was postponed to Tuesday, Sept. 6th (rather than Aug. 31st) so we were able to get most of the work done.  Sadly, many of my vegetable plants were literally windblown and no longer are able to produce anything.  We still have some tomatoes though and I am enjoying them everyday.  Stay tuned for some yummy recipes coming later this week!

~Katania