First, we felt the movement of the earthquake from way down in Mineral, VA. I was standing at the edge of my little screened porch, admiring our garden, when I began to sway a bit. Nothing in the area seemed noteworthy of providing such earth-shaking movement.
As you can imagine, this 'quake and shake' was the topic of conversation until we began to hear about IRENE. Not only would we shake a bit, but now we would get a heavy splash of rain ... and much wind.
So, we emptied our little porch of everything. We use to live on the Gulf Coast so we knew what to do. We incorporated all the pre-storm protection that became a common pattern for us down South. People up here had no clue that Irene's 'tail' would not only splash us with mounds of rain but would also cause little tornadoes that would pick up the most surprising things.
So, wind and rain did come. Our earth became so soaked that trees toppled. Power lines came down. My back yard bird bath toppled and broke. I forgot to bring that in when I scouted the garden for movable items. It now props up my Butterfly Bush that strong winds smashed.
Most amazing was what we saw in our front yard.
My husband decided to move it ... with my help, of course. Before we knew it, several neighbors were there to help. It took four men, holding onto what was left of the wrapping, to SLIDE it back to the property next door.
So, affects of the events that caused us to shake, splash and slide will linger through the week I suppose. God is in charge, as always. Reminds me of a verse in Psalm 68:8, "The earth quaked; The heavens also dropped rain ..."
Now that my little porch is back together again, I think I will go out and linger there awhile and watch our roses grow. They are none the worse for ware.
