Surviving the Great Summer Storms of 2012

What a week it has been! Thunderstorms knocked out power for about a half million homes in our area, and the power companies are estimating it will be the end of the week before power is restored to everyone affected.  We lost a lot of beautiful old trees all across the region. The picture above is taken from Dr. Rykman's front yard looking across High Street towards the Sheriff's office and the Court House.  Briarwood is running on generator power, which means that we can have the freezers on, or the water, but not both.  Storms always slow me down a bit, and call me to notice the things around me that really do matter, and now I am pleased to pass them on to you.
1. I was gratified to see how polite and helpful everyone has been here in our town of Lancaster.  Neighbors go out of their way to help each other, and even with all of the traffic signals out, people wait their turns patiently at intersections and in fuel lines at the gas stations.  There have been no reports of looting or angry confrontations anywhere in our county to my knowledge.
2. With all of the electricity going to freezers and the well, we spend our late afternoons and evenings sitting on the back porch in the sultry 90 degree heat reading and laughing with our Dominican and Puerto Rican friends the Macanudos and the Bacardis.  With dogs draped everywhere, and the day fading, the setting lends itself to noticing more of the world around us.  The Monarch butterflies have returned and now flutter with their friends the Sulphers and the Whites around the over-tall clover under the great apple tree.  Hummingbirds zig and zag between feeders.  The crash of a deer down in the woods, or the flash of a chipmunk or squirrel  occasionally stirs the dogs to action, except for faithful old Pat, the white hound, who is just too old and too hot to be bothered by the antics of terriers a quarter or half his age.  Even in the heat of the day, the tree tops sway lazily in the breeze, and the soft enchantment of the wind chimes eases the sticky discomfort.  I daresay such beauty is always around us, and what a shame we miss so much of it because we imagine ourselves to be too important or too busy to take the time...
3. Someone asked me about the inconvenience of running things on generator power.  Upon reflection, I realized that all of the discomforts of the week are luxury compared to service in the Army when we were in the field.  My bed is soft, I don't have to wear those incredibly uncomfortable fatigues and boots all of the time, and my decisions about time and movement are my own.  And...the generators belong to me.  I can re-deploy them at will, and not have to argue with some surly First Lieutenant who is stuck being Battalion Motor Officer and hates his life as well as his job, just to get a light set turned on for half an hour someplace in the forest of Northen Michigan or in the desert of West Texas.  As bad as it might have been, it is still better than Camp Grayling or Fort Bliss.  Everything is after all somewhat relative, and the miseries of what might be make the realities of the present just a bit more bearable.
Those are my reflections on the great storms of 2012 here in Ohio.  May God bless them to your edification and entertainment as he has to my own.