The Flock Returns

Hurricane Irene has officially out of our area. She came to visit for about 30 hours and what a mess did she left for us to clean up! We have hundreds of limbs and small twigs everwhere - on the roofs, in the gardens, on the decks and the lawn. I'll start removing the limbs in the morning, but I'll wait for it all to dry before I address the bazillion leaves.

I also need to replace two fence posts which were broken and I need to remove a couple of small trees, all damaged by Hurricane Irene.

We were lucky. It was a mild hurricane. Sadly, 4 people died; two in North Carolina and two in Virginia including a young boy. What a tragedy. It is so sad.

My daughter lives in Norwalk CT. She will feel the power of Irene tonight and tomorrow. I wish I could be with her, but I can't. She's smart and competent, so I shouldn't worry so much.

The last thing I removed from the yard before the storm hit were the bird feeders and I did that during heavy rain. The first thing back up after the storm , and the only thing back up today, were the bird feeders. 10 minutes later the hummingbirds, cardinals, carolina chickadees and tufted titmouse were feeding heavily.

This isn't the greatest shot. I took it from my deck about 50' from the feeder because I didn't want to interrult their feeding. I'm glad to have them back!