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