All over

Dorian has passed.  The chickens are all fine, the pig house did not flip over, one beehive had an outer lid blown off, no cars or structures were damaged.

Casualties:  clothesline, woodshed roof has another rip, the big hazelnut tree outside my window is tipped over:(  It may live, but it’s at 45° with the roots torn and heaved up.  I don’t know how well nut trees adapt.

Seeing as it didn’t feel any worse than many house-rattling rain and wind storms we’ve had, there were an astonishing number of trees down this morning.  Mostly big poplars, so no big whoop – I’ve got no business keeping mature poplars around.  All of them are heaved out of the ground, not broken off.  This seems to be happening more – when the ground is soaked the roots pull right out.  I can’t believe no hives tipped.

I started the day with the saw, cutting out the driveway and paths, meeting the neighbour coming the other way, checking his fences for trees down on them.  375 000 homes in NS were out of power this morning (how many homes can there be with a population of 940 000?) and I hear roads are badly damaged by washouts.

It’s nice today is sunny.  The chickens were soggy yesterday despite shelters, and I’ve never before seen the guineas looking like they went for a swim.  Everyone went to bed early, and there was no one trying to sleep in the tree, or perch on the coop roof for the night.

I let V and G and the chicks go to bed in the greenhouse after their best day ever!, until I had the galvanizing thought “What about weasels?!” So I had to go and collect them, stuffing one family at a time into my coat and transferring them to their lock box, moms clucking at the weather.  They are so cute.  They were snuggled down for bed side by side in the tomatoes; they do everything together now and the five chicks will be friends forever, I’m sure.