Home for the Holidays!

I am very excited! Sailor/Farmer/Husband's leave got approved and we are officially leaving Friday very early to head home to Minnesota for Thanksgiving! The kids are so excited and have already started packing as much unnecessary crap as they can fit into their little backpacks. I was hesitant to tell them for awhile since it was possible that hubby would be sent out somewhere, but the carrier left without him yesterday for a week, so I know that our plans won't be changed "courtesy of the Navy" now. (Knock on wood!) The trip is so long, but it always seems to go by more quickly near the holidays. We will leave at about 3-4 am and usually try to power through 1000 miles the first day from Virginia Beach to Janesville, WI - then that makes for a nice 2nd day of the trip. Wake up a little later, breakfast, then only 4-5 hours 'til home. I really love MN in the summertime, but the good thing about going this time of year is that we won't have bikes, kayak, etc on top of the car, makes for an easier ride! My mom is having a ton of family for dinner, so we should get to see just about everyone in the family. My dad's blues band has a tradition of playing a local bar the night before Thanksgiving so no doubt my mom will get "stuck" with the grandkids and dogs while we get some much needed time out and will get to really enjoy a night on the town with a trusted babysitter! It doesn't get any more trustworthy than your own mom, does it?!

As far as our storm goes, we have been cleaning up the past couple of days. We fared much better than some in our area. Our fence came down, lost some 2x4's off of our pergola and the kids' playset, and just general disarray and light flooding of the yard. The veggie beds seem to be fine (raised!) and believe it or not, I still have blooms on my azaleas, though the trees were stripped clean of their leaves, can't quite figure that one out. We have a massive container ship that actually washed ashore near us, they are trying to figure out how to tow it back to sea. We also lost ALOT of sand dunes near the ocean, and a couple of ocean fishing piers.

I designed some labels for the first time for our homebrew since we will be bringing plenty of that home to share at Thanksgiving. I can't seem to get a decent picture of the labels, so I'll spell it out...

on left: (named after our deceased rescue Bernese Mountain Dog!)

Pickett's

Recycled Dog Extra Pale Ale

woof - woof

renew - reuse

ADOPT!

on right:

Ludwig Family Homestead

Hophead

Double IPA

dry hopped suburban farm homebrew

We also mini-kegged a batch of Belgian Farmhouse Ale. This is the first time we have kegged so I am anxious to find out if "it took"! Guess we'll know soon enough! Good thing Leine's is plentiful back home to keep everyone happy if it turns out that it didn't carbonate well :)

I hope to post again before we leave but I will be trying to post as well from home if my mom will let me hijack her Mac for awhile.

"The Sea Was Angry That Day, My Friend....!"

Couldn't resist a little Seinfeld quote there! Well, there is definitely no gardening going on here. Maybe no garden left, either! Our Nor'easter hit yesterday morning at about 7 a.m. and is expected to continue for 60 hours. Bad enough that our Governor declared a state of emergency here. Normally when we get Nor'easters, they are here and gone within 24 hours. This is supposed to be on par with Hurricane Isabel a few years back, which the flooding after the storm was incredibly bad, and there are still people here that haven't recovered fully from that.

The weather forecast states sustained winds 50-60 knots, gusting higher. The waves on the ocean are at 17-20 feet, and on the Chesapeake Bay seas at 10-12 feet. For my "up north" friends, imagine 10-12 foot swells on Lake Superior. The real problem this creates in our area is the wind pushing the water inward through the Bay into the tributaries, flooding our entire area. We won't be out of the woods for several tide cycles after the storm passes on Friday night.

This photo is horrible because I got water in my camera, but it shows the offshore winds typical of a Nor'easter:

We live in a very interesting area water-wise, as we are surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the Chesapeake Bay, the large Elizabeth, James, and York Rivers, and the Great Dismal Swamp and Back Bay. Collectively, our 7 cities area is referred to as "Tidewater". We are basically an island, and have several bridge/tunnels that connect us to "mainland" which is really just another peninsula! The trouble arises when, during floods and hurricanes, the first roads to close are the bridge tunnels due to wind restrictions, which effectively seals us off and creates traffic nightmares. But the other side to all this of course is the beauty of the place when the weather is cooperating! And all this water is also the reason we are home to the largest Naval Base in the world.

I hope posting this map will work. It shows pretty well how affected by tidal flooding we are. Below is a topographical map I found on the National Wildlife Foundation's website. It represents pretty well the amount of water affected by tides in our area (all of it!). Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to make an arrow point to my house on the photo, but I live at the northern triangular point of "Back Bay" on the right of the map. The thin strand you see on the far right is a sandbar/barrier island near us that separates the Atlantic Ocean from the mainland.

I would say that in my experience, Nor'easters cause more damage than hurricanes in our area. I think this is due to the fact that we get far more of them, and they tend to be stronger and last longer. Most hurricanes blow ashore at Cape Hatteras, just south of us in NC, and thus become weakened by landfall by the time they get here. But of course, not always the case!

We are lucky that even though we live extremely close to Rudee Inlet, our house is on relatively higher ground. Historically, our street may flood and it is possible that we may not be able to get out of our street, but the house usually does well.

Here are some photos/videos of how it is affecting us personally:

The River Birch tree is only a year old, I hope she put good roots down this year!

Lastly, I will end with a pic from my best friend's yard across town. She woke up this morning to a huge pine tree down, roots and all! Not sure if you are able to enlarge it, but it narrowly missed the house, didn't hit any cars, and her azaleas in front of the house are okay! Amazing luck, but a big cleanup job ahead for them. I am sure my husband will make sure he is on the cleanup crew... they started homebrewing as well... you know, any excuse will do for husbands, lol!

I hope you have enjoyed my weather/topography blog... now I must take a shower and make some coffee while I still have power! School is closed today, so it should be interesting entertaining the kids stuck indoors all day!