Hurricane Nolo has stalled a couple of hundred miles south of us, though it’s still building into a Category 3 or 4 hurricane. Current prognostications are that it will make a turn to the west when it starts moving again, so will be a ways away when it reaches full strength. Nonetheless, heavy rain has already begun (0.6”/hour right now) and the wind is kicking up.
We finally got the replacement belt for Satan’s Own Mower (delayed in shipping for a month) and L and I put it on the mower. The install went really smoothly. We fired it up, and I thought I’d mow just a bit even though it was starting to rain. When I engaged the cutting deck, though, a small cloud of smoke appeared beneath the mower. I shut it down, but the new belt was shredded. Sigh.
My Meshtastic node that normally lives on a 12’ mast atop a 6’ high deck is now down on the ground (though it still seems to work somewhat). Windows are boarded up. The tent canopies are down.
I was dressed in foul-weather gear and down checking on the chickens (no recent sign of bad mongoose incursions) and starting the generator when I got a call from my neighbor across the street. Her next-door-neighbor’s goats had got out, and four of them (two bucks, a doe, and a cute little baby) had taken up residence on her front porch and were butting her front door. I grabbed some of our sheeps’ feed in a bucket, and went over there. The doe was interested in the feed, but the two bucks were largely indifferent. I did lure them about halfway down the driveway when they bolted back to the protection of the porch. One started seriously butting the door so I grabbed a good-sized stick and went up and proceeded to chase them off the porch. I have no experience with goats, and certainly none with these goats, and the presence of a baby made me a little worried that they might over-react to aggression. I kept them off the porch until their owner arrived. They responded much more eagerly to him carrying food — clearly he’s “food guy.”
I took one last dip in the hot tub in spite of the rain and wind. I put the tire on top to keep the lid from blowing off, since Luna the Big Dog™ chewed off the hold-down straps when she was a puppy.
So I think we’re ready for whatever’s left in Hurricane Nolo.
—2p
addendum 2026-09-26T08:53-10:00
Nolo seems to have decided to hang out down south for a while, but has started heading west at a leisurely pace. The lack of northward movement overnight and the current predicted path are good news for our island. Things could still get worse, of course, but we’re on track for avoiding hurricane-like conditions here.
