What's Your Hurricane Story?

Last night Hurricane Sandy hit.  And I mean hit.  August of 2011 Hurricane Irene hit, but that was a much different storm.  With Irene, there just water.  So much water.  But with Sandy (at least where I live) it was wind.  We got rain, but no flooding in my town unlike the neighboring towns.  Wind like I have never felt before.  It was frightening.

Monday started with us putting the animals undercover.  The 45 cows we have were all going to go in the coverall.  But there was not enough room for the 112 ewes.  Previously I  discussed with my boss of putting the ewes in his green houses - 4 houses with 28 sheep each.  But Monday came and so did the weather report - winds 60mph or more.  Those little green houses with the plastic covering were NOT going to hold up during this storm.  Plan B came into play.  An empty building where construction is being done.  After permission from the CEO, the 112 ewes went into a future school building.  

We put plastic all over the walls, and with help from the residents at the farm, put a ton of nice bedding down.  I wanted to stay here for the hurricane!









The sheep were a little on the confused side..."Where the heck are we!? Why are we here!?" 










It was a good thing that we changed where we were going to put the sheep.  Because at about 4 o'clock, this is what we found:

 This was one of the green houses we were going to use...And this was before the storm really hit.

We put the the cows in the coverall.  They were a little tight.  We'll have to figure out exactly how we'll do this for the winter, but it's a good thing that they won't be in there for 24 hours a day.

Then Lakes and I went home at about 6 o'clock.  We didn't get home in time to take showers though.  The power was already out.  So we hung out by candlelight, then went back when the sun set to close the chickens in for the night.  The storm was really coming in now.  The wind and the rain.  When we pulled up to the field where the chickens were Lakes and I just stopped and looked at each other - one of the chicken coops had been pushed about 60 feet from where we had left it that morning.  We ran outside and found that most of the chickens hadn't even gone into the coop.  They all took cover underneath the coops.  We moved quick, catching all these chickens and getting them inside while getting soaked.  We could barely hear each other with the wind, and at times could barely move because of the wind.  We then ran to the stone wall that was near the field and loaded the truck with the largest rocks we could carry.  We chalked the tires of each of the 4 coops, each thinking how lucky that the wheels of the coop that did roll away turned so it didn't crash into the road.  After feeling like we did all we could for the layers, we checked the other animals.  The chicks were ok but I wasn't sure if their polyhouse was going to make it through the night.  The cows were good, and the ewes were perfect.  So we went home.  I had a pretty restless night, unable to sleep because of the wind and imagining that the roof was going to blow off the chicks' housing, the chicken coops were going to flip over, and all the bacon I'm holding in my freezer was going to spoil because the power was out. (It's a lot of bacon!)

I got up and went into work with my flashlight, desperate so see how my animals were.  On my way in I saw this:

You know how many times I went up and down this road during the storm!?  These trees have GOT to come down!  They are all dead anyway.

The pigs survived, I wasn't worried about them.  The chicks were safe!  Their house stayed together.  And the layers were just fine.  Here's picture of where the house was and where it ended up:

 The spot towards the right of the picture, where there is hay on the ground, was where the coop was.  The spot where the yellow coop is in the picture, is where the coop ended up.  And these are not just your backyard chicken coops!  They are heavy.

In the end, the animals were all safe and happy, the sheep having the best deal for the night.  It rained throughout the day today but the wind died down.  I am so grateful that we were so lucky, and thinking so much of the neighboring towns and states that were hit much harder.  It was an adventure all right.  There was one point last night I looked at Lakes and said, "Is this really happening right now?"  It didn't feel real, and I'm happy that the weight in my stomach I had all last night is gone.  

And the sheep were so happy to get our of the weird smelling building and on to fresh grass too.