Battening Down The Hatches

As I type this,Hurricane Irene is still down in the islands. One track looks like the eye will come right over us when it hits NH,another has the eye going right over Portsmouth,about 25-30 miles away. Of course, there are other tracks that are possible,but we are not taking any chances. When it hits,at the most,it will be a Category 1,but that can still cause some damage with sustained winds of 60-90 miles an hour. If it's down graded to a tropical storm,it can still cause some damage.

Boats are being taken out of Rye Harbor. NH only has 13 miles of coastline,but Rye Harbor is the most exposed. People are not taking chances.

Living here in NH,hurricanes are a rarity.We live too far north,and the ocean water is not that warm to sustain a high wind hurricane. The last hurricane that we had hit was back in 1991,which I believe was Hurricane Bob.

We are preparing.If the power goes out,we have plenty of batteries for flashlights,candles,and parafin oil for the lamps. We have plenty of water-now that we no longer use our dug well,it's full. We can use that for cooking,bathing,or flushing the toilet. We can also fill the large canner and pressure canner with water,or use the filled water jugs for drinking.We still have our water barrels outside for the stock or if we need it. Our generator is fine,and we are going to fill our gas cans up. We have plenty of food. We have our propane grill,as well as camp stoves and plenty of propane on hand. Anything in the yard that can fly around will be put in the garage. The turkeys and chickens will be A-OK.

Hurricane Irene will be in our neck of the woods on Sunday. Rain is suppose to begin on Saturday. They are predicting  upwards of 6" of rain. Thankfully,we have a subpump in the basement. Rick's Dad lives in a trailer park down in North Hampton,only a few miles from Hampton Beach,so we told him that if he doesn't feel safe down there he and Brother Spencer are more than welcome to come up here.

We can only wait and see what Irene decides to do.