I went to the grocery store this morning to watch all of the "hardy" New Englanders buy milk, eggs, and flour like they do before every snowstorm. It never fails. They rush out to buy their cake baking supplies before every storm no matter how big or small. Seems kind of silly when the roads will be clear in a couple of days. I guess they can't go that long without eating cake.

Hey tree oracle - I actually baked a cake this morning. I debated between baking a cake and bread. Decided if we lost power - I'd rather eat cake!

Haha, Pixie lou! Tree Oracle, what would a winter storm on the New England gardening forum be without you griping about the so-called "hardy" New Englanders? Heeee

Course, the Trader Joe's was mobbed yesterday afternoon. Same deal there, everybody's gotta go out and get bread and milk, or whatever. Probably most people have enough food in their house to survive for a month, if they had to.

Gotta go back out and shovel again soon...

I'm with you, Pixie. In fact, I can't sleep due to the howling winds and now you've got me thinking --- chocolate cake!

Molie

Only a fool would fail to stock up before a storm, or maybe someone who loves to drive the 20 miles to the store for supplies on snowy roads. We have no plans to leave the property for the next 48 hours.

I baked a confetti cake this afternoon. I figure after shovelling out tomorrow we'll both need to replenish our carbs. It's cake and wine for us!

I hope everyone's power stays on, and no one's trees or houses suffer damage.

My husband went out for gas and more milk on Thurs. I baked oatmeal rolls and blueberry muffins. I made it half way to work on Friday when the traffic stopped and the person behind me didn't. Fortunately, minor damage. She lost her driver's side fender when she swerved to try to avoid me. Got my right rear tailight, a bit of bumper but my husband still wants to check the wheel. Police officer said there would be hundreds of accidents yesterday.

The high tunnel is still standing but will need the roof brushed off. Maybe the gutters to collect rain water weren't a good idea. Looks like they keep snow from sliding off the final few feet.

Should start some leek seeds.

I have at least two feet here in Providence and it's still snowing. Wind seems to have let up slightly but still gusting. This is the first really significant snow since I've done all of the new hardscape and landscape, so I'm seeing how snow drifts and collects around all the new stone walls, stairs, planters and all of the plants and trees. At the moment it's white on white on white! Definitely want to get photos as soon as I can!

Fortunately I never lost power, at least not yet but of course that could change as the day goes on......trees and wires weakened but not yet fallen. We'll see. All I can see is white on white, and large mounds of snow where shrubs are. I have a six foot camellia against the fence, and just the other day I estimated at least two hundred buds. Now all I can see is a four foot high mound of snow there! I hope it's not been broken, but merely bent. Same holds true for my Magnolia "Bracken's Brown Beauty" and for a lot of the evergreens.

{{gwi:5901}}

Based on how far the snow in the driveway went up my leg when I went out to help DH remove the 3 1/2 foot ridge left by the plow truck across the end of the drive, we have had at least 18", though it's been windy enough so that it's difficult to tell exactly. Luckily for us so far it's relatively dry snow, so not doing damage to trees and power lines around us. We still have snow falling, though much slower than last night, perhaps 1/4" per hour. The one good thing I see about the wind is that it is helping to decrease snow on roofs, since it sounds like we will get mixed precipitation on Monday, and the less I have to rake the roofs, the better.

I hope that all of you have stayed safe and warm with little if any damage to structures and gardens.

Oh boy, Sped --- now you've got me thinking cake AND wine! Sounds perfect! that's what I need after a bit of deck shoveling.

Molie

Here in MA my garden is just high white dunes. In RI my weekend/summer garden is probably at least a foot deep in snow, land sloping SE toward Buz. Bay, but I can't know how it is, because, having just checked the power outage map online, I see my town has over 4,000 customers with no power, and that's approx. the winter population.

Carol

My favorite mobile feature in my yard today . . .

(I know I'll be cursing the amount of gravel that gets kicked up from the driveway into the lawn and garden beds come spring, but right now I love the old beast.)

Now I have to go out and do a bit more shoveling.

So sorry to hear about your automotive mishap, Defrost, but glad it wasn't worse. Happy that your tunnel came through the storm safely,

LOL, Molie, the power of suggestion!

nhbabs, you got a lot more snow than we did. I'd be surprised if we have much more than 6" but I'll have a better idea when I get out there with the snow shovel. I share your enthusiasm for the town plow!

Bill, I hope your power stays on (I hope that for everyone!) and that your plants and stonework hold up to the storm.

Sped, the stonework's fine but the plants look flattened. I only hope they're not broken, but just bent down. Especially my favorite Camellia. It's around 14 years old and was covered in buds. Would have been the greatest spring bloom ever.........but all I can see from the window is a shrub lying on the ground covered in snow.

{{gwi:5901}}

I had no idea that cake-baking was such a popular past time during winter storms! :)

We probably got about 18 inches here too, but it's hard to tell. The wind has blown it all over the place. I'm not going to do cleanup until the wind settles down. Unfortunately my deck happens to be the repository of a lot of wind-blown snow from the roof -

Defrost - Glad both you and the tunnel came through yesterday OK and I hope that the fix needed on the car isn't too severe. I have been wondering about your tunnel after last night's snow, however.

Sped - It's DH's plow, though the town has a similar sized (though much newer) rig. DH has probably 1/2 mile of drive to plow between his shop (1/4 mile from the town road) and all the accompanying outbuildings plus the house drive, so a big truck makes the work much easier. And I am going for ice cream, wine and a bit of Advil, I think. Baking sounds like too much work for this tired body right now.

Bill - My sympathies on the smooshing of the Camellia. I had bushes and small trees that were bent to the ground with the 2011 Halloween snow, and they seem to have recovered, though I did go out and free them as soon as possible and a few branches have changed shape permanently. Hopefully you will be able to free yours from the worst of the snow before permanent damage is done. Will the snow kill the Camellia buds? If there are broken branches, can you cut them and bring the branches in for forcing so that you can get some enjoyment from them? I do know that if I ever get my dreamed-of sun porch, you have motivated me to be sure that it will have a Camellia since I can't grow them out-of-doors.

It's always a numbers game. Snow is more than twice the height of the snow blower's opening, but...I'm getting there. As a ref., the fence is 4', posts are 5'. Took 4 hours and 3 fill ups to clear 75% of the driveway. 30" in driveway and on deck, end of drive easily a foot more. Grateful to have power. After a tube of Biofreeze is applied to this body, I'm heading to Vermont for cake and wine. I'll bring a gallon, Sped. Save me some cake!
Jane :)

NHBabs,
I just came in from the first attempt at shoveling a bit, but bad back, sciatic nerve damage and diabetes limit that to a partial clearing only for now. But then what's the rush? The street isn't plowed yet and there's nowhere to go anyway!

I went over to the bent down camellia and the magnolia, but at this time there's too much snow to even try to shake it off. The branches are just too heavy and it was only possible to lift part of a branch because they are just buried, and that would mean breaking for sure. Maybe if some of it melts off a bit I'll try again later.

{{gwi:5901}}

What a relief to wake up to discover we still had power! I heard there are 400,000 people without power in MA, and we are usually one of them, so this is a nice change of pace. Apparently South of Boston got a lot of wet snow and we had the dry snow. Makes a big difference. Plus the wind seems to keep the snow from accumulating on the trees and power lines. Sorry, South of Boston!

We've been dug out since lunchtime. Just trying to keep up with the usual weekend chores and the extra that the storm brings. I was thinking of that thread we did on Hurricane Sandy about storm prep in case of power outages. That was such a help. And I felt better prepared this time around, without having to do very much. We already had two full tanks of propane for the grill. Plenty of batteries for the flashlights. Bought a crank flashlight after Sandy, along with a second headlamp from LLBean, and remembered to make a reservation at the local Suites Inn, just in case. Last time we couldn't get the number of days we needed, because so many people thought of it first.

I'm very impressed with the driving ban. I thought it was a smart decision, that is usually done 'after' the fact. I was listening to the news this morning and hear that other states have been dealing with plenty of stranded motorists, and CT reported 1600 calls to their emergency lines from stranded vehicles.

As far as running to the store to 'stock up', we made a trip on Thursday when I realized it was going to be so much snow. Baking and cooking, seems to be a tradition during storms. We LOVE to do that during a storm, or when the storm is on the way. Doesn't everyone? We lean toward soups and chills these days, but chocolate chip cookies were on our list when no one was watching their weight. No baking at tree oracle's house? (g)

We'll be looking at the roof tomorrow to see if we need to rake it at all. That's about it.

Glad everyone seems to have their power. I wonder if we are missing a few who lost theirs? Digger Dee maybe?

About 27 inches of snow here, according to the official reports. Neighboring towns got 36, 40, 34, so I guess we were lucky!

Streets unplowed, hearing that emergency vehicles are having trouble reaching people. Hope they get the roads plowed soon. I probably won't be fully dug out till Monday.

My back door this morning. There are about 4 steps up to the door, so those drifts are about 7 to 8 feet. And my shovel was under one of them. Sigh. But hey, I was just glad I could open the door, even if snow did fall in my living room. I couldn't open the front door because the storm door opens OUT...

Last I looked, Plymouth was 96% without power. Claire, being on the coast, I doubt she's part of the lucky 4%. Dighingthedirt is in Falmouth. I yhink. Which is also mostly without power.

Here in Metrowest we are fine. I made a big pot of seafood chowder this morning. And a loaf of buttermilk ranch bread. To ho with the Grand Marnier cake I made yesterday. (Sorry carol. I personally am more interested in what people are baking than their shoveling escapades. Shoveling is boring).

Hard to determine accumulations because if drifting. The mailbox is buried. And the bank from the plow was over my head. But on my back patio, snow wasn't even up to the bench seats

My parents are coming over for dinner tomorrow. It's moms birthday. So I'm off to bake another cake. This time an apricot almond pound cake.

I've got an after picture of the back, with the tunnel going to the door, lol, but it's still in my DH's phone.

Below is the path we shoveled down our 100 foot driveway. Took us all day. But I felt it was important to have access in and out of the house and to the street in case of emergency. Goodness only knows when we'll get a plow for the driveway, since we don't have a regular guy (we usually just shovel, but I don't think so this time!)

Went next door and shoveled a path for my neighbors, as well. Thank goodness their driveway is a lot shorter! I think I'm done for the day!

Wow, Diggerdee, I'd be done too, probably for a week, if I'd done all the shovelling you and your DH did! You were hammered with snow!

Jane, and others, we made some inroads into the cake, but there is plenty left, and the wine cellar is stocked! I can at least invite everyone for cake and wine, considering how lightly we got off snow-wise. I have no idea why we were spared, but I'm thankful we were.

I hope those of us without power get it back again soon.

I think we got about 8". There was at least one weather model that had the storm coming up the Hudson River valley, but the real storm apparently had other ideas. It was dry, light snow, so the power was never in danger, and the snowblower that is older than dirt could manage. DH claims he hates the snowblower, and would rather shovel, but somehow he found the gasoline can this morning.

That was the shoveling report. Now for the baking report.

DH decided to do something with the apples left over from Christmas pies. We didn't have enough, so he ended up with an apple, pear, strawberry, banana pie. It was a little too much banana for perfection, but perfectly edible. I made pizza last night. I was planning on making gingerbread, but the pie made it redundant. Waffles this morning, so my emergency Thursday shopping was eggs. Eggs and index cards for Spanish vocab.

I always thought that snowstorm baking was cookies, not cake. Since DH's birthday was last week, we just finished cake, so nobody felt a need for more.

Cats are uncertain about the current state of Out. The back door is blocked by snow, which is the door Orange Kitty (the Dude) uses. Black Kitty (the Prince of Darkness) prefers the front door, which leads into a tunnel of cleared walkway. The most cat-friendly exit is the back porch, but they aren't sure about that.

MG, I'm not fond of snowblowers either (and would probably be less so if it was that old!) but I would probably choose that over a shovel today too! So, I do understand that, but I can't wrap my mind around this sentence you wrote: "...so nobody felt a need for more (cake)..." Oh wait, is that some of the Spanish you were writing on the index cards? Is that why I can't understand it?

Geez, all this talk of cake, now I've got a sweet-tooth. May have to whip up a quick batch of brownies! I need a restorative to be able to get outside again tomorrow and shovel out the rest of the driveway!

Dee

Pixy Lou, shoveling is still the most important way to get back out into the world after a snowstorm. Baked bread isn't, even if it tastes great after a snow-clearing stint. But I DID manage to make a big pot of spaghetti sauce with meatballs, mushrooms and sausages, and we've been cooking a new pot of pasta for it each night. No cookies or cakes, though: no sugar.
With over 24" of snow on my 2000 ft. of flat roof and a rainstorm predicted for Monday (which would make the snow denser and heavier), I'm asking the plow guy to find several small strong men with shovels to climb onto my roof and get rid of that roof-destroying snow weight.
The city plow did go past on our street, but we had to wait a day for the private plow service for our driveway and parking areas which we share with 2 other residents. Plowing is also taking place on the commuter rail lines. After 6 PM tonight I heard a strange train whistle (after no trains since 4 PM Friday) and looked out back to see the fantastic vision of the Polar Express - a long empty train all lit up with a gigantic plow on the front, separating the track snow into 2 high wide fountains of snow. Eerie and beautiful and unforgettable.

Carol

Wow, Dee, impressive shoveling efforts you and your H undertake! I don't mind shoveling if we get 3 or 6 inches, or even more and just break it up into a couple sessions. It is good exercise, although rather strenuous and people with weak hearts or are out of shape should be cautious.

With storm Nemo, apparently we got somewhere around 24", and I was very happy to debut my new/old snowblower. Bought it off AFOAF who moved to Forida, and is a 25 year old Toro. I had my doubts, but he maintains his equipment well and that thing worked like a champ. It made me wonder why I waited so long, because I used to have beg someone with a plow or snowblower to come over during a storm like this!

Still have plenty of shoveling to do tomorrow, sorry but I have no baking to report about, haha.

Dee, I was tired at yelling at DD, 'No, you may NOT have cake for dinner!'. She is in the pit orchestra for the high school musical, and practice starts when we usually have dinner. So she doesn't want dinner at 5:00, when she has to eat, but 'snack'. AKA cake.

Terrene, our snowblower is a 35 year old Arians. My dad bought it when we moved from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, and the old one wasn't big enough. By modern standards, it is tiny, and often needs more than one pass if the snow is really deep. It does have the advantage of being small enough to sit quietly in a corner during years of unuse.

Yes Mad, mine is small by today's standards too, but one of my buddys admires it for the power and simplicity in a small package. And it is no smaller than the neighbors' snowblowers on both sides. It has a reasonable profile in the garage too, and might even fit in the back of my Suburu but not sure about that. And it takes plain ole gas! I don't have to make a mixture.

I was surprised how well it handled 2+ feet of fluffy snow - just chewed it up. 2 feet of heavy, wet snow would no doubt require more than one pass. But God help us if we ever get a storm with 2 feet of heavy wet snow!

Hi all...haven't posted in a while. My garden got kinda slammed - everything that wasn't cut to the ground for winter got splatted.

My two 4 year old Arborvitae got completely bent over from the snow - hubby shook them off at the height but now they are completely diagonal . Will they recover? They don't seem to be broken, but they don't want to stand upright either. I am assuming I'll need to stake them?

And my yews...which I didn't really care for to begin with, but removing them would be a nightmare...they stand (normally, ha) about 18 feet high on either side of the back of my garden

I don't even know what to do with these - they are so enormous I don't know how I could support them to get them back upright. I guess we could whack them way back? Or get rid of them. ha.

any help would be appreciated. As soon as the snow melts a bit I'll stake, if I need to.

Finally got power back about an hour and a half ago (47 hours without power but who's counting). No fireplace so it got cold, down to 40 degrees inside. It's up to 50 degrees now, climbing steadily.

The snow only amounted to around a foot - hard to measure since the winds blew it all over the place. I think I had a deeper pile of blankets on the bed than there was snow outside. I'm waiting until it gets close to 60 degrees so I can sleep without all the layers.

I was actually glad to be shoveling - shoveling warms you up. I had plenty of emergency supplies but I drove out today mostly to make sure the car battery was charged up but also to get some extra birdseed in case the roads ice up after the rain/wintry mix due tomorrow.

Shaw's supermarket apparently had generator problems, they weren't selling perishables, the lights were dim, and only the self-checkouts were working. While I was there a fleet of utility trucks drove into the parking lot and gathered, practically circling the wagons. It gave me great hope (Shaw's is a little over a mile from me) and sure enough the power came on later.

I don't know yet how much beach damage we got - a big snow drift blocked me from getting to the edge to look down.

I'm really tired of eating cold food and drinking cold coffee - I think I'll do some baking tomorrow (thanks for the reminder!)

I hope DtD in Falmouth is OK.

Claire

Lost power Friday night here on the MA south coast. Got power back early this morning (Sunday). We only got 15 inches but it was like cement. I have a 8 foot Cherry laurel that is completely bent over--horizontal---and covered with snow. My large southern Mag looks really horrible. I am not going to attempt anything and just let the snow melt naturally. There should be a lot of melting down here tomorrow with rain and temps up near 50. But then this spring there will be lots of hard pruning. I am wondering, for example, if I should just cut the cherry laurel back to thick stocks maybe 4 feet up...and let it regrow into a smaller tighter plant? Not sure what I will do with the southern Mag until I can really inspect which branches are broken and which are just severely bent. But I imagine I will prune the entire tree back hard...a good foot and let it re-grow back into a tight dense structure. I was worried about the large Crape Myrtle but the branches are very flexible....they are just bent and will bounce back up...plus it needed some light pruning anyway (cutting off last summers seed pods and trimming back the branches a few feet). I keep telling myself-----historical event! These things happen.

And I've got to say....the pics and reports from CT are truly impressive. The New Haven area really got slammed.

Claire, glad to hear you got power back! Snow drifts and shoveling are one thing. Being without power in this cold is quite another. I bet you still don't feel warm!

Dee

Brrrr 40 degrees is pretty darn cold in a house, Claire!

Kpaquette your Arborvitae will be fine as long as they aren't broken. Mine splay under a heavy snowload, but they always bounce back. I do occasionally prune them a bit, in particular I head back any branches that stick out too much because those are the branches that will be prone to breaking under the snow load. And yes you can stake them back up straight if they don't right themselves on their own.

I have several 15-20 foot Yews too. It is unusual that Taxus grows in a tree form, because most people prune them into meatballs or meat loaves. I prefer them in a more natural form. I've been shaping mine for years to head back the branches that stick out too much. This usually causes the side branches to grow out in a bushy mess. So I thin those out for a more natural branch form. They are a little tricky to prune, it is a science and art. It's hard to tell if yours are a nice form because they're so smushed by the snow!

With both species I would be conservative about pruning and not take off too much at once - they both grow slowly.

Thank you terrene... That's good news about the arborvitae, it doesn't look like any are broken but its hard to see to the base now with all the snow.

We inherited the yews as they were- when we bought our house we ripped out everything and started over but we left the yews since they provide privacy from our close neighbors. They are (or were) dense and grow nicely straight up - we'd trimmed the tops at first to keep them neat up there but they're too high now. The plan was always to remove them when we replaced the back fence and shed. If they don't bounce back maybe that new fence will come sooner rather than later.

You can see them in the background here, in better times. :)

I found a couple of pictures mid storm - here are the arborvitae before we shook off the snow

And the yews before they were completely flattened

We got slammed here on the Cape; my power just came back on, so we were in the cold from late Friday night to Monday morning.

kpaquette, you were smart to leave the yews, IMHO, since it looks like they provide - or will provide - privacy from your across-the-fence neighbors. Believe me, it's not easy to get anything to grow next to a solid board fence. In a similar situation, I've tried several different plants over the years, and I really wish I'd gone with yews 20 years ago. They tolerate almost any conditions, are nearly pest-free, and provide a good background to whatever you plant in front of them. They're certainly not exciting in themselves, but the Brits use them to great advantage as backdrops and as solid masses of deep green. If you take them out I have a feeling you'll miss them!

Carol, your description of the long ghost train plowing the tracks was mesmerizing. I wonder if they didn't need to move a train from one location to another, and so combined that task with plowing, killing two birds with one stone. Otherwise it seems they would have just employed a locomotive engine to clear the snow. That must have been a sight to see (and hear)!

Was just reading back over a few posts here and somehow realized I had totally missed Rockman's post - I think we posted at the same time. I am certainly glad that you too got power back, lol - didn't mean to ignore your cold and dark situation! And Dtd as well.

We are conserving on the heat because we don't know when/if an oil truck can make it down our driveway, and I still haven't gotten to digging out the pipe, which is in the most God-awful difficult place (under the 8 foot snow drifts in a nigh-unreachable nook of the house). So, I am sitting here freezing my butt in my 62-degree house; I can't imagine it being colder and not having the ability to crank the heat if I really wanted to.

Lots of lovely icy rain here this morning to add a nice sheet of ice over everything. Luckily it's changed to just rain so maybe it will help clear out some of the snow... until it freezes tonight...

Dee

Rain and mild temperatures today (47 deg) here on the south coast melted a lot of snow and liberated many of my plants from the icy grip of the white stuff. Will spend tomorrow propping up and securing some of the bigger plants--just in case we get another historic storm in the next 2 weeks----do not be surprised!

I'll cut you guys some slack on this one. This was not a typical snowstorm. I've lived in Marshfield for 13 years and I've never seen the devastation that I witnessed from this storm. Power lines down everywhere. Trees down everywhere including on several homes. No power for a large percentage of residents including myself since last Friday night. I'm sure there were a few roof collapses today too when the rain saturated the snow that had fallen. For those of us used to modern conveniences, it's amazing that most of mankind historically speaking had no electrical power, no grocery stores, no appliances, no high output lanterns, no hot water heater, etc. It's also amazing how dependent one is in modern times to televisions, radio, phones, computers, etc. I have found ways to occupy the time the last few days but my wife (who is from New England) is going nuts. Certainly, everyone has a greater appreciation for the basic things in life that we take for granted. I feel like celebrating Thanksgiving after everything gets back to normal.

There were downed lines and trees all over Newport, too. All of Aquidneck island was without power at one point. Since the power was out and we were bored we went walking around town - and there were 4 downed lines that we saw just in our neighborhood. So many more all around town. Trees on houses, cars - it was pretty amazing.

I agree with you about the modern conveniences. I thought I was pretty "ready" but washing dishes with pots of boiled water was even a chore (though it didn't help I was having a blizzard dinner party for 10 before the power went out....note to self: get the dishwasher run before the power goes.) ;)

And man, we were all pooped by 8. Maybe because our bodies spent so much energy staying warm in our 40-something degree houses. It gets dark and we were drained. If ours had been out much longer I think we'd have gone to friends. We are definitely soft.

rockman50 said:
"-just in case we get another historic storm in the next 2 weeks----do not be surprised!"

This is a bit unsettling since he's a very knowledgeable weather buff. Is there something the meteorologists aren't telling us? Enough for this year!

The sun is out, the slop is melting and the shrubs recovering. I probably lost a few of the more tropical houseplants in the outage, but most of the houseplants seem to have survived. It reminded me that Homo sapiens is also a tropical species; we've just compensated with heavy clothes and extensive technology. Take away our accessories and we wouldn't last a cold winter night.

Speaking of washing dishes, I was amazed when the clear dishwashing detergent turned white and thick as the house temperature dropped to 40 degrees. It still worked when diluted but the dishes probably weren't cleaned as well as they could have been, particularly when I was using cold water (this is very low on my list of things to obsess about).

Claire

Disasters like Nemo remind me that I need to get our woodstove out of the cellar and installed in the spare room. It's a project we keep putting off, since it involves moving boxes of junk and heavy furniture and installing new flooring. But I know I will be kicking myself if we have a lengthy power outage. I can do without electricity for awhile, and we have a tap for gravity fed water in the cellar, but I start to shut down when the indoor temp falls below 68 degrees.

It has been chilling to read of everyone's situations. I think being cold and having no light is the worst of all. But ---as tree oracle said --- it's also true that we are so used to our modern conveniences and to being "connected" via TV, the computer and radio. This last weather event certainly gave me an appreciation for how our forefathers in New England suffered as they settled New England.

We were lucky because, though we were expecting the worst, we never lost power and because we have a gas fireplace and cook with gas. I have to admit, though, that I'm mighty glad my DH bought a really big snowblower when we first moved into this house ten years ago. We never dreamed that he would have heart problems requiring surgery and that this "stupid purchase" (as I once called it) would be so important to us now. With three feet of snow and four foot drifts, we'd still be trapped if we had to depend on shovels.

I hope all of you are now safe and well!

Molie

Actually, I think our ancestors had it easier in these circumstances, not harder. They didn't worry about losing power, lol. They didn't panic if they had no cell service or no internet, they didn't have to worry about driving cars on icy roads, or making a run to the supermarket to stock up. Seems to me they were in a readier state of preparedness, could either walk or ride a horse to where they had to go (as they usually did) or just stayed in on the farm if that's where they lived. It probably wasn't as big a deal to them to be "out of touch" for a few days.

We are the ones who have it harder in situations like this!

:)
Dee

I see both perspectives on that. Like Molie said, just thinking about how many hardships there were for settlers before all our modern conveniences, is very sobering. I have always found that lifestyle appealing and in younger days would not have considered it so far fetched to live that way. As I get older and see how much harder it is to take care of every need even with modern conveniences, I can see why their life expectancy was so much younger. (g)

But I also agree with the point you've made, Dee. They didn't know any better. They were used to living that way and of necessity had to constantly be in a state of readiness and self sufficiency. And I think that families and neighbors and communities had a greater awareness of their dependence upon one another and expected to help each other out in times of crisis, to a much greater extent than we do.

I wonder if people on GW, who I assume have a deeper connection to the natural world, would have a higher percentage of people who would prefer the pioneer lifestyle over the modern day lifestyle, than the general public? Or at least imagine they would?

No way would I choose the pioneer lifestyle over the modern day lifestyle!

In the modern world, I can choose to not have a television, not answer the phone (let the answering machine take it), and not have an account on Facebook. But I can still keep the medical system and hospitals, UPS, Fedex and USPS deliveries, Amazon.com, supermarkets, and the internet....

I don't want to have to grow all of my vegetables and slaughter pigs and chickens, and I don't want my family to go hungry if bad weather destroys the crops or kills the livestock. You can't rely too much on the community to help out if they're in the same predicament.

Life is much better now, even with an occasional nasty storm and power outage.

Claire

Back to the storm damage. Our biggest concern on the coast was winds and storm surge on top of astronomical high tides. Living on top of a coastal bank reminds you that the bottom of that bank can be washed away and eventually it all falls down.

Yesterday the stairs to the beach were clear enough to walk down so I checked on the status of the beach post-storm.

The waves came up to the bottom of the path leading to the stairs, but not to the stairs themselves.

Just to the left of the stairs the waves came up to the bank itself but deposited sand and vegetation on the beach grass rather than eroding the bank. We dodged a bullet all right, in parts of Cape Cod the waves gouged out many feet of dunes and cliffs.

Here we had what will probably be a natural beach nourishment and enhancement of the beach grass. Of course, that sand had to come from somewhere - I don't yet know where.

Claire

I saw some online photos yesterday of one of the MA coastal state parks with steep drop-offs and undercuts at the base of what used to be gradual dunes. The accompanying article said that the park will have to be closed for a while for fear of the banks collapsing on people and that the area won't be worked on until the winter's nor'easters are done for fear that any work done might be washed away in the next storm.

Just got back from a day in NYC, and while coming home was just over the border into CT on the train when I saw snow on the ground. I turned to my DH and said, oh yeah, I forgot we still have 2 feet of snow at home! It may have felt like minus-five walking around Manhattan, but there wasn't any snow and for awhile I had blissfully forgotten about it!

Dee