We got our power back this afternoon! Michael made a pitiful call to the phone company (after we received three automated calls to tell us our power was back) about how we didn’t want to be forgotten again (Ivan). So the Power Guys came over and lit us up. I heart Power Guys! I want to hug every one I see! Becky, I’m sure they are coming to light you up soon! Want to see the reason our power was out?

That’s the only tree we lost. Of course.

Not having power for MUCH longer that any of our neighbors seems to be our Hurricane Tradition. Our only other storm damage (aside from the usual limbs and leaves) was this disturbing leak.

Since Dennis came ashore in the daylight, and we had the western side (which means that all our wind was NNE)*, we got to watch the whole thing from the front room windows. Which was pretty cool. The cats lined up in the windows and Angus kept begging to go out. Kitty Boo slept through almost everything. Elizabeth’s yoga bag doubled in size.

The baby birds and their mom weathered the storm just fine. You can see their nest much better than before, and I am not sure that my Fluffy Ruffle Fern is going to recover, but mom and all four babies are just fine.

Now, I want to harness all of your prayers and well-wishes and focus them on another common goal: TS Emily and her little wanna-be buddies. We here on the Northern Gulf Coast would like a break. We would like them all to go to an uninhabited area of Mexico for a little while. At least until I get home from camp.

*That little jiggle straight North really lessened the impact for Bay Minette. The sudden track change combined with the compactness of the most intense winds caused us to miss the worst of it by about 15 miles. Atmore, AL (about 20 miles from us) took a beating instead. This is just too sad – they had tornados during Ivan and had a really rough time afterwards.