No time for photos today, as hurricane Irene now has her sights set directly on our little island. Right now they are calling for 7 inches of rain at my house, so I imagine the carefully planted and very cute fall vegetable seedlings that poked their heads out this week will be beaten down to nothing. And if they aren't destroyed by the rain, the hens - that will be left to free range if everyone leaves for the duration of the storm-will surely eat every single seedling. (The last thing I want to do is lock the hens in a coop, not knowing when someone might be able to get back to give them food and water. We will make sure the doors are tied open so they can get inside their protected area, will fill two huge food tubes with food, and will fill every bucket we have with water. The water will be placed in protected areas around the yard and in the coop. There will be plenty of bugs around too, so the hens should be fine.)
To prepare the beehives we installed imirie shims, a little square frame on each hive that gives the bees an opening where they can come and go from the TOP section of their home. They need that extra entrance/exit because it is quite likely the main hive opening will be underwater as the tide surges. In addition, each hive has three flat cinder blocks stacked on top to help hold it down and keep it from blowing apart.
So, the hens are taken care of as best we can, the bees as well. Nothing to do for the gardens, we will just replant the fall garden after the storm. For those of you on the Carolina coast, I wish you well. There is still lots of time for the storm to change course, so we will see. I'll let you know how things turn out.
