Hurricane Gustave and now Hurricane yIKE's Near, Too!

While we are almost breathing a sigh of relief that hurricane Ike might not come this way, we are also still trying to get things back to normal from the last hurricane; that being Gustav. Considering how badly other people are still having it; that being no electricity or food or water OR gasoline, in the parishes of Lafourche and Terrebonne, not to mention how badly Baton Rouge was hit, as well, and having as of yet, no electricity (blessed A/C), water or food, we have been truly blest. Cappy worked like a dog trying to get the pecan tree cut and stacked for firewood. It took him a few days in terrible heat. The other pecan tree isn't looking all that well, especially today when the high winds have been kicking up from Ike, down there in the Gulf of Mexico. Cappy's father had these two pecan trees transported to our yard and professionally planted shortly before he passed away. He and his Dad were very close. "Raymond" was his best friend in the whole world. These pecan trees mean more to Cappy than you could possibly know. While he was lovingly cutting the one tree into proper sized pieces to fit into the bbq pit, I know he silently shed a few tears out there in the heat, which disguised themselves as sweat dripping off his chin. He said by measuring each stick and having them carefully stacked, that it was his way of best honoring the tree and his father's memory. He said, in that way, it would be like having his Dad with us as we bbq in the future, using that dear ol' tree.

Usually, I would have had Cappy's beloved Abita Amber beer all iced and ready for him while he sweated all day out there in the yard, but there was an alcohol ban for the week after the hurricane, so he was relegated to drinking ice water...not a bad thing, but he really wanted a refreshing 'cold one' all week. (I hadn't had time to go shopping for groceries beforehand and didn't think to stock up on his favorite beverage, because I had high-tailed it up to Alexandria, LA for the hurricane. On my way back home, I drove through a lot of awful debris and wreckage, and was nervous about running out of gasoline, because I was listening to the radio the whole way, and let me tell you, there was very little gasoline to be had anywhere. I heard people saying they had been sitting in gas lines for as many as seven hours!!! Thank the Lord I picked Cappy up at a place near one of his offices and we made it home with gas to spare, because Robert, his co-captain had thought to bring a couple of gas cans full of gas for us to use to get home. That is a good man!)

Now, with Cappy at home this week, we finally we got the yard relatively back in good shape, so we took Tinker Bayl, his Jeep, for a small road trip to Thibodaux to Walmart to try to find a few groceries, and along the way saw a lot of damage done by hurricane Gustav. We made this little slideshow of our Gustav aftermath. I, Peggy, still have my side of hurricane Gustav to complete, perhaps in a few days. Until then...the slideshow @ YouTube, (cuz dis blogger don't wanna upload 'em anymore, I guess.) ALSO: note somewhere there on YouTube, that you can click on the option to view the slideshow in a better quality...I recommend that. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=CAfZTUAL3IA