Here at Hangman Hill

We spent Friday night in New London enjoying dinner and a concert.  Dinner at Chaplin’s was superb, we will definitely return.  Chaplin’s clearly has a following and reservations are recommended.  The menu was varied and we highly recommend the seafood specials, and the homemade desserts  

Quite unexpectedly, we had the first frost of the season last night.  Brrrrr!  Autumn/fall is undoubtedly here and we’ll need to get busy in the garden this coming week.

We have been very pleased by the recovery of the raspberries which took a pretty serious beating from Hurricane Irene.  The vines were twisted and broken and many undeveloped raspberries littered the mulch floor of the fenced garden in the wake of Irene.  However several weeks we are seeing peak in production with approximately one basket per day.  We are enjoying them on cereal for breakfast and freezing the rest for a mid-winter treat.  Nature never ceases to amaze us.

We spent the second half of our weekend basking in the delight of water running from the taps and switches that activate lights, sound and motion.  This included restoring Command Central back into a working kitchen and doing several loads of laundry.   The fridge and freezer are now clean and free of UFO’s (unidentified food objects) that have been lurking for years.  We had a celebratory dinner at  Mark and Jen’s house on Saturday night, and were pleased we could arrive clean and dressed in clothing that was pulled not at random from a dark closet.

By Monday we were back to “normal” with Sheri working in the yard and Bruno returning to the downstairs bathroom renovation project.  Irene left a lot of limbs and branches in the yard,  the veggie garden required some damage control.  While Sheri was picking up sticks and re-staking tomatillos, Bruno installed the new IKEA bathroom vanity with help from Mark.  There was a lot of grumbling about actually doing labor on Labor Day.   However, the multitude of power tools that were used in a single day suggests there was SOME fun involved.  Once again, Mark’s help was appreciated.  It is just too bad the tractor wasn’t somehow involved.

We are heading back to work this week and hope the rain from Tropical Storm Lee doesn’t cause too much flooding locally and to our neighbors to the north.  

Saturday has arrived (powerless of course) and we have the whole day to ourselves. What better way to start the day than with French toast and a little bacon cooked on the barbecue grill.

Lessons learned from Irene: fill your bath tub with water (sounds crazy, but it really works for flushing). And buy a good headlamp (just google 'Petzl headlamp'). This just could be the most important item in your emergency kit.

Maybe next time we will have a backup generator too………

Friday night. Sixth day without water or power. Headed into the long weekend without sight of any utility crews. Hard to believe the press releases from the electric company. Had dinner at Bruna's Table in Westerly to take break from eating and doing dishes by flashlight. The drive home was very dark.

We thought about going to Keene NY to the Adirondacks this weekend since we are nearly camping anyway. Staying at home sounds better based on this sad report. We have fond memories in many of the places mentioned, including hiking/scrambling on Mt Colden, sleeping under the stars on Dix slide, carrying Kelsi down Wright peak and arriving at Marcy Dam after long hikes – with a few more miles to the car.

http://www.adirondackalmanack.com/2011/08/irene-leaves-widespread-damage-in_31.html?spref=fb&m=1

Sheri

The outage map is still very dark in our parts.