North Carolina has been killed by rain for the past week and a half. I think we've probably only seen a couple of hours of real sunshine in that time. While most locals have been going crazy, I have been loving it. This is my favorite weather, and to have a full week and a half of it -- BLISS! When the rain started, I remember excitedly putting the kids into bed, jumping into my jammies, cracking open my window, and getting into bed with a good book.
Since we started school in August, we have been studying all kinds of different weather. I'm letting the kids choose what they want to be taught in science and weather was at the top of their list. I was really glad because a lot of weather terrifies them and with our studies we have been able to better understand the importance of extreme weather and help calm their fears. We had just finished up our unit on weather when they announced that Hurricane Joaquin could possibly be hitting us. It was fate. The kids and I have tracked the hurricane and we measured the rain we received. Every few hours we would go out to check the bowl. Then when the bowl was filled in 12 hours I put the mason jar out. (Note that the bowl is no longer filled. Let's just say Thad decided not to stay on the porch once when I was measuring the mason jar.)
On Thursday and Friday we weren't sure where the hurricane was headed, but as time passed it became clear that it would go back out towards the Atlantic so we wouldn't get a direct hit. We are so grateful because we needed power to watch conference this weekend. Since conference doesn't start here until noon, I woke up on Saturday morning and told Ben right away that I wanted to go to the farmers' market, buy a bunch of apples, and can more applesauce. We had been debating all week about peeling apples during the first session of conference but we weren't sure if it was a good idea. You can imagine that Farmers' Market + Hurricane = disaster, but I thought about it and realized that we wouldn't be fighting a big crowd and we could easily get our apples. $35 and 2 bushels later, we went home and pulled the table in front of the TV, and peeled and chopped away while listening to conference. And voila! We ended up with 27 jars of applesauce and 1/2 a bushel of fresh galas left for eating. It's amazing how much faster and easier this process has gone with Ben doing half the work than when I did it by myself a few years ago!
Conference has been so uplifting. I have been particularly touched by Elder Nelson and Elder Holland's talks so far. I can't wait to finish this session!
2 comments:
I was relieved to hear that the hurricane did not cause flooding or other problems for you. And yah for applesauce!
OK - it's well known that I'm far from being normal (and let's just say that I'm not "above normal"). So when we heard that Joaquin was coming to visit we made all of the normal preparations (even filled up both 5 gallon cans for the generator). Then Joaquin started heading further and further East - it wasn't going to hit land at all. Believe it or not but I was actually disappointed - how sick is that? Of course I was happy for everyone that they wouldn't have the pain and aggravation that comes with a hurricane, but I was looking forward to seeing if we really were prepared. I guess I can try that without a hurricane anyway. Sorry you have such a sick father.
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