Morning, all

It's morning on the homestead, and we're doing ok.

We woke up after a night's worth of flickering power.  All the various clocks blinked, but each electrically-powered machine worked: refrigerator and CPAP, dehumidifier and wireless router.  Children woke up according to plan: Owain early, grabbing laptop; Gwynneth, later, grumpy.  Electricity let Bryan make customary coffee for Ceredwyn.

No damage to the interior of the house.  All windows were intact. Cats surprised that we didn't immediately leap to open the door and let them commence a very late morning patrol.

Bryan checked out the outside, and found some Sandy effects.  Half of the woodpiles had their covering lifted off, leading to tarps flapping in the wind, and sheet metal dropped in various awkward locations.

Bits of tree limbs had landed just about everywhere.  The chicken enclosure was safe, as were the birds. Our new wheelbarrow showed about 10 inches of rain.

Stones kept it from blowing away.

In short, we and the rest of Vermont lucked out, according to one meteorologist. An inversion manifested over the state, blocking the storm's worst.  Yes, more than 8,000 people are now without power, and there is flooding to the south; we don't want to minimize that suffering.  But it could have been far worse, as we see in New York, New Jersey, and lower New England.  And as we remember from Irene.

Sandy is now weakening in force as it slumps to the northwest.

(from NOAA)

But it's still a dangerous monster.  Check out the high winds and river flooding warnings on the Google crisis map:

Purple is high winds happening now;
red is imminent river flooding;
yellow, likely ""

The Crisis Map says that power outages extend all the way to Ann Arbor now.

The cold front is being pulled in from the west and, while we are in the 50's at the moment, we can expect the temperature to fall through the day.