Mother Nature in the avatar of Hurricane Irene dumped more water on New Jersey than I’ve seen in one storm. The southeast corner of my garden is now a small lake. It covers the upended stump of the black walnut tree which toppled in Montclair’s ‘microburst’ about five years ago. I believe the groundhog made its home under that stump. With the area now more appropriate for a beaver, I hope the groundhog vacated in time. I would not mind at all if it never returns. Neither would my neighbor. She had been extremely displeased by ‘our groundhog’s’ dining on her extensive vegetable garden.
I’m grateful that our electricity did not go out. The sump pump was—and still is—working overtime. Nevertheless, we had to bail water out of the basement’s utility area.
On Tuesday we came to check things out at the lake—only had to take one detour, courtesy of flooding. Again I am grateful. Our power had only been off a few hours. The only damage was some serious erosion in the parking area.
We walked around the lake, saw a power line down in the road. Out here, where everyone has a well, no power means no water—and in some cases—not even the ability to flush. We passed a teen telling her friend that she took a shower at another friend’s home. Also passed a man and wife who were loading large, dripping wet bags of food stuff in their trunk.
“They don’t know when it will be fixed,” he said in disgust.
We were surprised to find our small garden intact. There is plenty of lettuce, a yellow squash filling out, and a few cherry tomatoes. I thought they’d have blown away. There was even an Italian tomato that both my husband and I judged would be ripe for picking in two days.
Then it disappeared!
My husband accused a chipmunk he saw in the garden.
“How could a chipmunk carry off a plum tomato? It was as big as he,” I said.
We searched and found the tomato—with a few bites out of it—in a crevice between two rocks. Obviously somecritter thought it already ripe.
No comments:
Post a Comment