We've been through this before, a little too recently to forget! I'm saying all this in addition to the official "How to Prepare" guide, because we did all that too! This year, we started planning days before. On Thursday, Hudson and I went to the market for some groceries. On Friday, we went to Costco. On Saturday I was busy with the baby shower and 5 hours in the car, but the boys worked outside for hours clearing the leaves and bringing in the potted plants on the deck.
On Sunday we powered up on pumpkin pancakes, then we were all outside for about 3 hours, Hudson kept himself entertained which was a blessing. I gathered sticks for kindling, since if we loose power it will be mighty cold in the house, and we'll want some dry twigs for getting the blaze going. I started with a pile that has been growing for years. I've been meaning to clear this pile for awhile because it's towards the front of the house, and the space could be used for parking. While I broke the twigs down and put them in my bucket I took the limbs that were too big to the back woods. I raked and cleared the area, so now we have an extra parking spot, come on over!
While I was working on this, Ted was blowing leaves and acorns, and later mowed the lawn. It may sound silly to do all of this with a hurricane coming but I guess the thought was we'll have to move them sometime, so we might as well start now!
Part of our efforts this year included an acorn redistribution plan. We have at least 5 oaks next to the house so filling the bucket was easy and quick work! Ted blew the acorns, I filled up a 5 gallon bucket with acorns and tossed them into our woods. It is definitely a luxury to be able to just pile up leaves and other yard debris on other parts of the property and not bag them! I don't know if my redistribution plan will result in trees but it certainly won't do any harm.
It felt great to be outside and moving around, especially since we are anticipating being mostly inside for the next two days!
I ended my work in time to start some lunch and pumpkin baking. We had 3-4 pumpkins for baking. Now the market that I go to gives away a free pumpkin with every purchase so I'll have many, many more pumpkins to bake by the end of this season! So far my favorite is the "cheese pumpkin" but I'm also happy with pie pumpkins.
Here's the pureed result of 3 pumpkins, steamed, skinned, pureed.
I baked 3 loaves and 2 dozen muffins mostly for the freezer. I would have kept going but I ran out of eggs.
The weather on Sunday was calm, even calmer than normal I would say. The forecast still looked bad so we stayed home all day, and I slept in a different room away from our tallest trees.
PS one fall-out of Goodbye Cable, the antenna we have doesn't work so well in crummy weather, on the other hand, we all just get annoyed and turn it off!
What are your best preparation tips? Hope you stay safe and enjoy the extra family time!
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| My little pumpkin pancake batter helper. |
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| Our New Parking Space. |
While I was working on this, Ted was blowing leaves and acorns, and later mowed the lawn. It may sound silly to do all of this with a hurricane coming but I guess the thought was we'll have to move them sometime, so we might as well start now!
Part of our efforts this year included an acorn redistribution plan. We have at least 5 oaks next to the house so filling the bucket was easy and quick work! Ted blew the acorns, I filled up a 5 gallon bucket with acorns and tossed them into our woods. It is definitely a luxury to be able to just pile up leaves and other yard debris on other parts of the property and not bag them! I don't know if my redistribution plan will result in trees but it certainly won't do any harm.
It felt great to be outside and moving around, especially since we are anticipating being mostly inside for the next two days!
I ended my work in time to start some lunch and pumpkin baking. We had 3-4 pumpkins for baking. Now the market that I go to gives away a free pumpkin with every purchase so I'll have many, many more pumpkins to bake by the end of this season! So far my favorite is the "cheese pumpkin" but I'm also happy with pie pumpkins.
Here's the pureed result of 3 pumpkins, steamed, skinned, pureed.
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| About 15 cups of pumpkin puree, it's a messy business! |
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| Yum! |
The weather on Sunday was calm, even calmer than normal I would say. The forecast still looked bad so we stayed home all day, and I slept in a different room away from our tallest trees.
PS one fall-out of Goodbye Cable, the antenna we have doesn't work so well in crummy weather, on the other hand, we all just get annoyed and turn it off!
What are your best preparation tips? Hope you stay safe and enjoy the extra family time!
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