Getting back to ‘normal’

  **Warning** :   Long post…picture heavy!!!!  Make sure you have caffeine and time!!!!! LOL                                             Cyclone Yasi is on its way Apologies for not being able to blog this past week as our power only came back on on Sunday night, but went out again Monday and then didn’t come back on till Tuesday….it’s been a hectic week……very surreal and now it feels like it was a lifetime ago!!!! Cyclone Yasi certainly made its presence felt and even though we were about 300kms away from the centre, we certainly felt some of the effects…thank God the majority of it was only outside in backyards, parks and gardens and little damage was done to buildings.  The power of prayer certainly is amazing and I know that many of you were praying for us up here in NQ, and I am so thankful…..you can only imagine how much!  We are certainly feeling for those less fortunate in Tully and Cardwell and the surrounding areas that copped the most direct hit with storm surges that took buildings and placed them in the next street, covering everything in a thick layer of sand.  Friends in Ingham have only got their power, water and phone connections back on today…can you imagine going without a bath for a week!!!???? We lost power on Wednesday but hubby was prepared with a generator that could run the whole house….we hooked it up on Thursday and powered the fridges and freezers up so we didn’t lose too much…..the generator had other ideas!!!!!……it died on Friday morning!  We managed to borrow another smaller generator on Saturday afternoon but it could only power a fridge and freezer at a time, so juggling became second nature however it was a losing battle!  We finally got power on Sunday evening but I think our garbage collectors are going to be very busy tomorrow with all the food we’ve had to throw out! We went for a drive around town, when it was safe, to inspect the damage… this is our local Woolies store….trees were uprooted from  the bitumen carpark…. large trees, some over 100 years old, toppled like cards. Sugar cane was flattened. Parts of the Coles sign ended up halfway down the road and huge, heavy metal signs just ‘fell’ out of the ground! My son’s high school had uprooted trees fall through the roofs of the office and home ec. room. Trees went through electrical wires which caused no end of drama but the Council and Ergon (our electricity suppliers) boys worked like mad!!! I thought I’d share some our our yard with you…….not such a pretty sight at this stage!!!! The powerful winds twisted this large branch of our macadamia tree which we tried to remove with a hand saw, but soon realised a chainsaw was in order if we were ever going to make any headway!!! One of our mango trees was snapped and the branches blown over the other side of the garden, past the mandarin tree and the herbs This mango was split in half by the wind’s force Avocadoes, bananas and pawpaws bore the brunt of Yasi’s force in the back corner of the garden and you can see the amount of leaves stripped and lying all over the ground!!!! Hubby had to cable tie the back awning at 2am during the cyclone after the aluminium arm broke.  We were worried that it would rip the fascia off and then the roof so cable ties saved the day!!!! A couple of days later, this was the pile of branches from our garden we disposed of for the council pick up……we now have another pile there, the same size, ready for the second collection!!!!  And, I am O-V-E-R  green ants!!!!…if I never see another green ant it will be too soon!!! LOL Despite having no power, by torchlight and l.e.d. lamplight, I managed to catch up on some of my Raggedy Friends stitcheries when we weren’t cleaning up the yard…. Amazing what you can get done when you’re not distracted by tv and technology!!!! And now, it’s back to ‘normal’……hopefully it will be that way for all affected (afflicted??) by Mother Nature very soon!  Let’s not forget them too! Sugary hugs XXX Wendy :0)