Right now I am siting in my living room while my little guy is quietly watching some Veggie Tales. I may still be in my P.J.s, and the extent of our productiveness has only been eating, cleaning the kitchen, and resting.
And I am not one bit ashamed at that. Because to be honest, we have long needed a quiet, peaceful day at home, just like this.
The past two weeks have been some of the busiest, most chaotic, anxiety filled, purely emotionally exhausting weeks we have gone through in a LONG time.
What has made them so chaotic you ask? Two words...
Hurricane Florence.
Our community, along with everyone within 100 miles of us were slammed head on by Hurricane Florence almost two weeks to the day.
Many of our local communities were destroyed by devastating winds and torrential rainfall that lasted for 3 days.
And then once the rains did stop, local rivers began to rise as they never have in recorded history, and flooded out many, many more homes and businesses. And today, some communities are still under those swollen rivers.
We praise the LORD that we did not receive any extensive damage to our home. Only a few shingles blew off the roof, and a TON of branches and leaves fell from the trees cluttering the yard.
Oh. We lost my favorite shade tree in my front yard.
We were also living on something of an island for almost 5 days. As every route out of our neighborhood was completely flooded over.
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| Right beside our house |
We were without electricity and internet for 8 days. Which was a huge trial in itself having to take care of a toddler in 90 degree heat, with 100% humidity, and 6 months pregnant and already always hot from the pregnancy itself.
Trust me. There were many tears shed everyday.
But we were well prepared provision wise. We had a generator to run our well pump for water, and to keep our refrigerator and freezers running.
And we were even able to cook hot meals on a propane camping burner.
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| Breakfast of freshly laid eggs, cooked camp and eaten style, covered in nutritional yeast |
Our days were spent trying to keep calm to help our little guy keep calm in the heat of the day...
Keeping the other members of our homestead safe and fed...
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| At one point we thought we may have to evacuate the pigs from their pen, due to rising water. But thankfully that did not have to happen. Overall, they were pretty happy with all the extra mud |
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| The chickens spent the height of the storm (2 days) in a steel hunting dog box on the back of our truck, parked next to the house to keep them safe from any possibly falling trees. They were very happy to get back to their coop, even if it was muddy. |
And for me, trying very hard not to let the chaos that comes with having to live in the coolest room of your house day in and day out, drive me to the brink of insanity.
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| Our living room became a camping site |
But the LORD was good in all of it. And the moment I was able to get some normalcy back and the electricity and air conditioning back on, that was a beautiful moment indeed.
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| Notice the orange dot on my mailbox post? That was a marker from a volunteer search and rescue team from Illinois that came by and marked each household safe or not. |
If you could still pray for the southeastern part of North Carolina, we would be very grateful. There is a LONG road of recovery ahead for so many, with homes and livelihoods destroyed. In particular for our small farmers. As so many of them are still under water.
Have you ever been through a hurricane or other natural disaster? What did your days during that time look like?
Have a wonderfully blessed day everyone! Thanks for stopping by!
Angel
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