High Summer in the Hollow
Here we are simmering into the summer of 2012. The West is on fire and here on the eastern seaboard we’re just recovering from a week long heat wave and historic derecho wind storm that together have thrown us back to the era before electricity. In the cities and towns where everyone is dependent on the grid, it’s not been pretty.
Out here in the hollow, it’s been hard but at least we can open the windows at night to let in air that cools with the evening instead of releasing the stored heat of asphalt and concrete. We can haul water from our spring-fed reservoir and pick strawberries and tomatoes from the garden.We don’t have to depend on anyone to bring us water or rescue us from the upper stories.
We got power back 3 1/2 days after the storm on June 29. We lost a willow and a locust and a couple of large branches from the walnuts, but have been luckily protected by our little hollow. Neighbors in Batesville, Crozet, Keene, Charlottesville and Waynesboro sustained widespread damage with downed trees, power lines and smashed vehicles. Two people dead in Albemarle County.
No one around here will ever look at the wind come up in the same way.
We thank God for all our blessings.