Snapshots: Order from Chaos

The majority of my week was spent in cleaning up from the storm last weekend. So that's what most of these photos show.

Most of the plywood used to board up the two windows that smashed all the way through came from a piece that was in the bunkbed made for my cousin by my grandfather thirty years ago. It's still got the stickers on it that my cousin put on so many years ago.

This plywood has traveled far from its Wisconsin roots to protect the windows of my trailer in New Mexico.

We had a little rain this week, and I'm pleased to say that the plywood on the outside and the plastic bags on the inside were adequate to keep anything in the house from getting wet.

Half the horse shed roof peeled up in one big piece of tin and wood crosspieces. It was incredibly heavy, and was perched somewhat unstably on top of the shed. It needed to be pulled down and the roof patched enough to provide shade and rain (and God forbid, hail) protection to the horses.

A. has been in New York all week (on his way home now, yay!), so many of the tasks that would have fallen to him have now fallen to me and my junior work crew. Luckily, they really are old enough to work now. Every one of them helped me clean up all this mess, and although I did most of the heavy pulling of the old roof to get it off and supervised the patching, I didn't actually go up on the roof myself.

I delegated that task to a much younger and lighter person who is also much better with tools than I am.

The Honda runs fine, but sustained enough damage to the windshield that I'm not very comfortable driving it. A. took the van to New York, which left me with the two trucks. 

I don't much like driving a stick shift, and the Ranger is not only a manual but also very small in the cab. So I've been driving the F-250 Heavy Duty when I have to go anywhere. It still has the giant racks on it, so this is my view when I'm driving.

Not my usual style, but it gets me where I need to go.

There were many, many piles of branches and leaves on the driveway that we raked up. I let them dry out for a few days, and then we had a bonfire one morning on the edge of the driveway.

Should've made s'mores.

All 18 sheep survived the storm just fine. They sheltered in the abandoned adobe house next door we own.

And the rising sun, of course, just keeps on coming up, storm or no storm.

There you have it! My post-storm life, snapshotted.