After the Storm

after sandy, originally uploaded by Bumble Lush.

Thank you, everyone, for your positive thoughts and words about Hurricane Sandy. We are fortunate not to have suffered a loss of power or any property damage from the storm. Our power cables are buried underground, so that helps. The winds were strong and a little scary on Monday night, and the lights flickered a little, but overall, nothing happened. There are leaves all over the street, but no trees fell. The worst that happened was my butterfly bush toppled over. But it needed to be trimmed anyway, so I guess Mother Nature helped me along. Interestingly, the giant sunflower in the raised bed remained intact.

My friends and family in DC/VA/MD were also lucky not to have suffered damage to their homes or power loss. Unfortunately my friends in NY and NJ weren't so lucky. Most have no power and one is stuck in her apartment because the street is flooded. My heart goes out to them and those who suffered worse tragedies. Hopefully the clean up will go smoothly and the weather will be calm for the next few days to help that happen.

I think we're all happy to see Sandy in our rearview mirrors. If you were in Sandy's war path, my thoughts are with you!

Hurricanes, Zombies, and Old Clothes

Cleo checks weather conditions

Along with everyone else along the East Coast, we are awaiting Hurricane Sandy's arrival, and hoping she'll leave quickly and not leave too much mess to clean up. I'm praying that no trees fall down near our house. As of 3:30 today it hasn't started raining yet, which is very good because the Marine Corps Marathon is happening today around DC and Virginia, and the runners probably had enough to worry about with the wind gusts. Not to mention the fact that they had 26.2 miles to run. My friend's husband is running it. They're both serious runners, although I'm not sure that they've ever run a marathon before. Can't wait to see how he did.

Speaking of running--this gets to the "Zombie" portion of my post--Yesterday my husband and I participated in Run For Your Lives, a 5K run/obstacle course through the woods where people dressed as zombies chase you throughout the course. One of my goals for 2012 was to compete in a 5K, so I was able to check that box off in style yesterday! I had so much fun, and I want to do it again next year. In the morning we were zombies. The event coordinators provided professional zombie make-up and shredded clothes and put us in various places along the course to chase the runners. All runners get a belt with 3 flags, and the zombies try to rip the flags off. If you make it to the end with your flags intact, you survive. If they're all gone, you've become infected and are a zombie. We had a 3-hour shift of popping out of bushes and trees and scaring the crap out of people. It was fantastic! After washing off our fake blood and changing into running clothes, we then ran the course later that afternoon. It was a completely different experience and so much fun. The sad part--in a true zombie apocalypse, I'd be zombie bait within minutes. My flags were all gone within the first mile.

Last night was a popular night for Halloween parties, but we were wiped out after the race and didn't go to any. Today is so gloomy, we're just relaxing at home, and planning to grill steaks before the rain really starts.

I'm behind in posting about the SSFC Challenge, which wraps up this week. Here goes:

The most recent challenge was to create an international dish. My favorite cuisines are Mexican, Cuban, and pretty much anything south of the border.

We made ropa vieja, a Cuban shredded beef dish, which literally translated means "old clothes." It's probably my favorite meal ever, and if it's on the menu, I'll be ordering it.

Ingredients:
flank steak (Smith Family Farm, VA)
onions (my garden)
peppers (my garden)
peas
crushed tomatoes
Husband's special marinade

So not all ingredients were locally-sourced, but the steak, main ingredient, was. Ropa vieja can be eaten on its own, but I like it with rice. And if I had plantains, I would have fried some up to eat along with it.

Now it's off to refill my wine glass and get cozy in front of the TV. That sums up my weekend. How was yours?
Are you in the Hurricane Zone? Any Halloween plans?

Earthquakes and Hurricanes

Dark skies Friday night

The view out the window all day Saturday

Wow. Mother Nature has been busy on the the East Coast over the last five days. Here in the DC area, we had an earthquake on Tuesday and then Hurricane Irene stopped by over the weekend. In my neighborhood, we got rain from the hurricane Friday night and all day Saturday. Since we were forced to stay inside, it was a good excuse to watch bad TV,  drink wine, and eat junk food.

The neighborhood birds huddled on the ledge above the neighbors' door to get out of the rain. Aside from heavy rain throughout the day, the storm wasn't that bad where we live. We don't live near the coast, so we got heavy rains and wind, but no flooding or destructive wind gusts like they got near the beaches.

We were lucky. Aside from a few tree limbs and leaves, nothing else fell around us. No trees came down, no one in our neighborhood lost power.

The day after--the garden looked exactly the same as it did before the hurricane. We left the plants on the deck but moved them off the ledge and table and placed them against the house. The winds were strong but didn't knock anything over. 

I took these pictures of a butterfly on the hydrangea plant on Sunday afternoon. Yesterday was a warm, sunny, gorgeous day. Butterflies, birds, bees, and other insects (especially mosquitos, ugh) went about their normal business. You'd never know that a hurricane had just blown through. That said, I'm happy to see Irene in my rear view mirror. Thanks for the free water, Irene! Please tell your friends to stay away.

Thank you, Blogging Friends, for your well-wishes during the last few crazy days. I hope all of you on the East Coast made it through the storm with no issues!

Non-Earthquake Wednesday and Tomatoes

No damage to the Bumble Lush home or garden after yesterday's earthquake. We were very fortunate. Were you in the quake zone? Was this your first earthquake? It was my second and felt more like a tremor to me (because there was no damage). If you were in the affected areas, I hope that your families are safe and property is fine.

Non sequitur: I had these tomato pictures scheduled for my Wordless Wednesday post:

top to bottom: Black Krim harvest; variety of tomatoes and tomatillos; grape tomatoes of different sizes; and a grape tomato and patio princess harvest

Thunderstorms

Well, these are the hazards of a container garden. We got some much-needed rain last night. Unfortunately it came in the form of a flash thunderstorm that knocked over most of our pots. My Sweet Chocolate and Purple Beauty peppers fell over (top photo) and so did most of my Black Krim tomato and tomatillo pots. We'll need to re-stake the tomatoes, but thankfully we didn't lose too many fruit.

p.s. In the last picture, you can see a Black Krim starting to turn red (lower right corner)!