Ike

The above is a picture of Hurricane Ike taken from space - the international space station to be exact. I cannot get over how big it was, or how scary it was to be here during it, or how much devastation it caused. We personally did not suffer great devastation but it was all around us.

So in a continuing effort to process the experience I'm going to share some of it with you.

One of the little things that still bother me is that there are little bits of leaves embedded in the tiniest of cracks and crevices of our house (and probably other people's houses too but that's not my problem exactly). The high winds literally shredded the leaves from off the trees and drove them onward. The shreds were plastered all over the outside of the house and have mostly washed away, but they also stuck into the tiny grooves around the windows and doors. You can't just hose them off - you have to dig and pry them out. The biggest bits of these leaves are about the size of a pinky fingernail. Most of the pieces are smaller. And they are stuck. I mean, STUCK. I'm worried about leaving them where they are because I think they will compost themselves and turn into moisture problems in my exterior woodwork and create damp, open, and perfect gateways for insects to enter the house. Luckily most of our house is brick and concrete siding but there is some wood.

And it looks really unattractive to see all these little bits of dead leaf stuck in the window frames and also the grooves on the garage doors.

It was bizarre after the hurricane last September to see all that misty light green as the bare trees regrew their leaves. You expect to see it springtime, not in September and October.