Fall Decor envy: 9 '19

This morning Bruce announced that I had missed a room in yesterday's decorating spree. 

 It seems I fogot to decorate his bathroom and he wanted that oversight corrected.

 No problemo!   His washstand now has an antique bottle filled with s chinese lantern pods (Physalis alkekeng) and a mini-scarecrow to keep him company.

Decorating Our Home for Fall: 9 '19

Autumn is my favorite time of year.  I love its brightly colored leaves bountiful harvests and the hind of coolness in the air.  I love the month of September because it usshers in my havorite season: Fall.  
To Celebrate the arrival of Fall, I usually start decorating our home  right after the Labor Day Holiday ends. 

Usually  the decor  change is subtle:

There's a freindly smiling scarecrow to greet you in the front yard

and at the front door.

Within a day, two more appeared at the back door this year.

But the real fun begans  when I pulled all my fall Seasonal 

decorations out of the attic and got to work  decorating the interior of the house

Brightly colored fall leaves  cascade down in front of the windows 

and  hang over tables and shelves loaded with  autumn's bounty .

Live pepper plants in the Sun room

We grow a lot of different kinds of pepper plants throughout the summer.  The smaller live plants, along with many of the harvested crop always seem to make it into the decor before they get eaten.

Live peppers and mini pumpkins in the kitchen window

Lichen covered branches on the mantle

I like all the lichen covered  branches I find in the woods at this time of year.
 Those go on display along with apples and maple leaves.

We love the way all our beautiful artwork

looks with  bright highlights of Fall color around them. 

Even on the most discouraging of days, 
mother nature's exuberance is sure to our spirits,
 and make us glad to be alive.

9 Holes at Indian Wells: 9 '19

We had beautiful weather all day today. It was warm ( 80 F) and sunny, but with a light cooling breeze. It doesn't get much better than this here in the deep South, so when Bruce asked if I would like to play a round of 9 hole golf with him at any local course of my choice, I said "Sure". And asked him to book a Tee-off time in the mid-afternoon at the Indian Wells Course( in Myrtle Beach).

We've played this course many times before, and it is one of my favorites. The greens are tight and technically challenging which means this course favors those who use their brains over their brawn in the game. The fairways are not extremely long, and there are frequent water obstacles and changes of direction in the middle of the fairways. To keep a low score here you have to spend a lot of time calculating where to lay up, so you can drive a second shot over the water, and in a different direction than your first shot. Bruce and I both enjoy this kind of mental and physical challenge. Neither of us were playing at par, but we came home happy (and very tired.)

Drone's eye view of PI after Dorian passed: 9 ' 19

This is a great drone's view of the creekside aftermath of Dorian on Pawleys Island starting from the north end of Pawleys Island down to the south end where it narrows to one street width. BTW scene 2:20 / 4:12 the camera is looking straight at the Pawleys Plantation causeway ( the long boardwalk through the marsh which leads to the island green at fairway 13). The causeway points directly to the end of our street with our home just behind the trees at the top of the scene. That should give you a good idea of why we watch the tidal flooding warnings so carefully.

Drone flyover of the PI creek

All's well Post Dorian: 9 '19

All's well on the Eastern front.

 

We had a large tree topple in the woods behind us, and another very large oak has uplifted its roots and is leaning precariously (away from us, TG). 

But otherwise, all is good. We spent yesterday restoring the house, and yard to pre-hurricane condition. ( put the carpets back on the floor, put all the furniture back, the emergency survival gear is stored away until the next storm, washed all the windows, put screens back on, moved potted plants back outside, etc. etc. etc.) We're pooped but grateful to be alive and well enough to do all this.

9/5 9 am update on Dorian: 9 '19

Hurricane Dorian was still a Category 3 storm with 115 mph. winds (by the 8 a.m. NOAA update for Thursday, Sept. 5, 2019). The powerful hurricane was spinning just 70 miles off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina. We are definitely feeling the wind and rain from her outer bands. Our lights are already flickering, and I've already seen the tops torn off of a couple of trees. So glad this will be passing over us in daylight, it would be much scarier at night.

Myrtle Beach 9/5/19 9am update

3:30 pm Dorian Update: 9 '19

The center of Dorian is currently about 100 miles South of us -  approximately even with Jacksonville, Florida.  She is still a Cat II with 105 mph winds at the center and is moving north along the coast at 8 mph.  We are expecting the heaviest rain and winds to hit our area around midnight, and stay with us all through tomorrow (Thursday).  Even so, we are already getting some pounding bands of rain in our area.  As you can see from the forecast, the eye is likely to pass very close to our home so things are going to get worse for the next 24 to 48 hours before they get better.  By Friday,  Dorian will have moved on to North Carolina and the Outer Banks. 

Namaste: 9 '19

Hurricane Dorian stalled out over the Bahamas for the past 36 hours and has been shredding that Island State.  As terrible as that is for residents of the Bahamas, it may just have thrown the coastline of mainland USA a life-ring.  The storm has lost a lot of intensity while it battered the Bahamas.  It is now down to a Class III hurricane (down from a Class V). Unless it manages to renew its eyewall before it reaches us, it will be a lot less fierce than had been predicted.  Last night's NOAA forecast showed Dorian hitting us on Thursday with probable wind strength of around 60 mph.  While that is certainly strong enough to topple trees,  those winds will be coming from the North, meaning that the tall trees behind our house will most likely be blown over into the wooded area behind our home, rather than on top of our home.   The storm surge from Dorian will be high, so we are expecting a lot of flooding in the low lying areas around us. Flooded streets may prevent us from driving out of our community, but unless Dorian intensifies tremendously in the next 48 hours. I do not think any water is likely to get inside our house. 

So the Southern word of the day is NAMASTE.  We're staying!  We've both been filling our time during the wait by doing small tasks to make ourselves more comfortable while the storm is upon us  ( e.g. Bruce is doing all the laundry, while I premake a number of meals)

Latest update on Dorian's projected impact on us 9 '19

Here"s the latest update on Dorian's projected impact on our area. Hurricane remains a dangerous hurricane. A track very close to the South Carolina coast is likely from late Wednesday through Thursday. Bottom line is we are still planning on staying. .

latest Dorian track with impact details

Do We Stay or Do We Go: 9 "19

 We are still debating whether to go or whether to stay.  There is no change in Dorian's path or intensity as of 8 am this morning, but to be on the safe side, the Governor of South Carolina has issued a Mandatory Hurricane Evaluation Order for the entire coastline of South Carolina. 'Mandatory' means they strongly advise you to leave' and you are on your own if you stay. The cops aren't going to throw you in jail if you choose to stay, but don't call for help if you find yourself in over your head. 

Right now Dorian is still a Cat V hurricane over the Bahamas. It is moving at 1 mph toward Florida. Dorian is predicted to be a CAT II or III when it reaches us on Thursday morning. At that strength, the biggest threat to our home is going to be from falling trees. We have a lot of tall, massive 100+-year-old oaks and pines directly behind our home. In our sandy low-country soil, the rain will loosen their roots enough that even a 40mph wind gust could topple them. I will post another update after the 11 am US Weather service refresh on Dorian's path and strength.

Mandatory Evacuations Ordered 9 '19

Oh Man! Not again! This means us. We're in Zone A (Highest Risk). Now we need to figure out which way to run which won't make things worse. If we go North, Dorian will follow us; If we go south, we will be driving right into the storm. West maybe?? The problem with South Carolina is that there are so many rivers to cross and so few major highways, that getting from point A to point B is always a slow crawl through a maze of farm community back-roads? I was really hoping to avoid having to evacuate.

Mandatory evacuations ordered for all South Carolina Coastal Communities.

Update on Dorian 9 '19

Hurricane Dorian is a CAT 5 storm with winds gusting to 185mph. We expect to see CAT2 conditions in our area by Thursday. Except that we are not putting up plywood over the windows this year, our house is fully prepped for the storm. 

On the outside, we stripped out most of the flowering annuals;

 a hurricane always seems to flatten them to the ground.

We will be removing the vinyl window panels in the Carolina Room on Wednesday so they don't get damaged by the hurricane-force winds.  Last night we moved all of the house plants in the Carolina Room away from the windows and stacked them close together in a corner. that way they will still get some light but the wind will be less likely to be able to toss them around.

 

Our house sits at an elevation of  13',  and is just barely outside of a flood zone, so we always have to prepare for the possibility that we may get water inside if the hurricane coincides with a high tide.  So just in case we get do get a flood, we rolled up all the carpets, and stacked them atop the table.  Then we stacked all of our indoor upholstered furniture on smaller tables so they are at least or more feet off the ground.  

Of course, that also means we can't use the table or any of our living room furniture, so we brought the wrought iron patio furniture in from the Carolina room.

Our home is all-electric, so any loss of power would mean we would have difficulty cooking.

To compensate we brought our portable grill and a dozen canisters of propane gas inside.

We've also stacked the freezer full of bottles of frozen water to help keep the food cool as long as possible and placed hurricane lanterns and flashlights in every room.

We've discussed whether we should try to evacuate or not. Just in case a mandatory evacuation is ordered, our bags and emergency gear are packed but, unless things change radically over the course of the next few days, we will stay put.