I've Been Greatly Blessed

I've been offline for a few weeks, (6 to be exact) and I thought I'd start posting some pictures of what I've been up to. There are lots of pics so I'm making several different posts, by category.

This first post are pictures of the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. I was greatly blessed that I had no real damage. Many people who live on the coast lost everything.

Above: This is a view from my parents' house, looking toward the road. Their cedar tree fell across the driveway and knocked down the power line to the house. We had to clear the way out with a chain saw. (All the roads were like that too)

Below: We're cutting up the cedar tree to clear the drive.

Trees in my parents' yard fell over like dominos, but nothing fell on their house.

Below: Dad lost the roof off his shed. I couldn't help but inform him that his roof was leaking. My sister came right behind me and told the same joke. He's a lucky man: two commedians in the family!

Unfortunately, when the roof flew off the shed it hit the green house (and the well but I don't have a picture of that)

Here's where the roof landed:

Before and after. Above: This picture was taken in November, 2004 in the woods behind my parents' house. Below: This was taken following the storm close to the same place. To line them up, look for the skinny, droopy looking tree in the center of the pic above; it's to the righ in the one below.

The two pictures below are of the south bound acess ramp onto I-59 in Poplarville, MS at exit 27. The trees were snapped off like match sticks. This scene can be found everywhere.

These two are views from my back porch. Above: This hickory tree is close enough to my house to do some real damage, but it only lost limbs. Below: This oak tree could also have done much damage had it fallen, but it only lost a couple of limbs.

Behind that oak tree was a bigger oak that was uprooted. And another hickory tree (below) had two trunks and only one broke off, falling away from my house.

The total damage to my house:

Yeah, I know my house needs a paint job, but I can't complain when the sum total of damage to my house needs about four screws to fix.

Oddly enough, the same storm that uprooted trees and nearly wiped away the whole Gulf Coast away wasn't able to dislodge this bird's nest in a little tree in front of my house. See how the leaves look like they were eaten away by bugs? That was wind damage.

There is so much I have to be thankful for: my home, my family, my friends.... In future posts, I'll show more about what we've been up to here. In the mean time, take care, all.