August 16, 2020 A truly remarkable week

It has been a remarkable summer.
It has been a remarkable year.
It has been a remarkable time in the country and in the world.

But on Saturday morning when I read last Sunday's post, it seemed so very long ago.
Who knew it would be one of the most memorable weeks in memory?
I am not talking about nominating a black woman to be Vice President.
I am not talking about there being no college football in Iowa City this fall.
I am not even talking about the virus and school openings or college students returning to town.

This will not be the customary blog post with pictures of flowers. (There will be some garden information.) No voting this week.

Where do I possibly start?
There were of course two very big things.
On Monday we had a derecho come through Iowa including Iowa City.
Do you all know that term now?
It is of course "straight line" winds.

With wind speeds approaching 100 mph, this 60 minute weather event was described by some weather folks as an inland category two hurricane. We had a front row seat, having just come home for lunch.

The house was not damaged but we were without power from about 5 minutes after it arrived Monday at noon, until 9 pm on Thursday,

But on Thursday night, after the power can back on, we had a new grandchild. Here she is.

Margaret Ross Mears Snell.

She was actually born Friday morning about 5 am our time. She was born in Portland, Maine.

How is that for a week?

Now to say a few more things. You start out with the big picture and then add details.

The house was not damaged by the storm.
We were fortunate.
The trees in the yard are still there.
We were fortunate.
The sycamore which must reach 60 feet tall, lost a lot of the top limbs, one of which is still stuck in one of the crabapple trees. You can see the sycamore debris in the picture at the top of the post.

The garden is still there, as the digging out continues. Pictures are coming.
Remarkably the hanging plants almost all survived, including the very big orchid cactus plants.
So did most of the potted plants including the crotons.
Mostly the storm damaged big trees, leaving the little trees like the crab apples and the new little dogwoods alone.

We were without power from noon on Monday until late Thursday evening.
That was a long time.
Of course the problem was downed power lines.
Before they could do anything about the lines, the broken trees had to be dealt with. The city and the power company recruited all of the tree services to help. A few industrious and adventurous neighbors did some of this work themselves. Our downed tree limbs did not take out any power lines.

It was summer so it was uncomfortable being without power. As the days went by our concerns for frozen food grew. We have a chest freezer in the basement, that is mostly full.
In my adult life I can only remember 1-2 times when we have not had power for days. I think one of those was the great blizzard of 1974 when we lived in the country outside Grinnell.

The storm

We came home for lunch on Monday. There was rain in the forecast. We needed rain. We got home, had a bite of lunch and were about ready to go mail some packages at the HyVee postal substation.
I had seen this ugly line of red coming. But the sirens were not on at that point. As we went out to the car, it looked really ugly and was starting to rain and blow. I thought there might be hail so I put the car in the garage and we sat out the storm.

The sirens came on about the same time as we lost power. We only had a weak-signaled iphone at that point so we mostly did not appreciate how bad it was.

This picture was taken at 12:45 on Monday. Yes, those are limbs from the sycamore tree,








































This first video was taken at 12:57. This is after about 30 minutes of the storm. It is looking north from our front porch. You can see some of the swinging plants, including the large night blooming cactus. Only one came down.

This was taken at 1:31, after most of the storm was over.
You can see the big trees swaying in the wind. By that point the really big Jade plant had blown over. That is the one that took two strong people to move.

This was taken at 1:32, also from the front porch. I do not think I had appreciated the damage in the back yard. Mostly at that point as the winds died down we wanted to go back to the office where there was power.

We were fortunate. Cedar Rapids and Grinnell were two towns that had much more damage, to homes and the power grid.

And there was the damage to the crops. You know crops? Those things the farmers grow and sell and fuel the economy.  50% gone by some estimates.

Here is the New York Times story, even if it took the east coast media 5 days to see the story.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/15/us/midwest-storm-farms.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=US%20News


Here is a Youtube video from someone in Iowa. It begins to capture the moment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIlN62s0900&fbclid=IwAR0cDZMS_zWRuzSSs0nEazV-Fim_T5YZgblSDr1gaDiHUX3Va3W4Xu2biBA


The story of the damage to Cedar Rapids, 20 miles north of us is just starting to be told. It was near the top on the Daily Kos this morning. We really were fortunate in Iowa City.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/8/15/1969654/

After the Storm

Images

We know some people from church who were homebound because they had caught the virus. Monday we were to take them dinner. We made the mac and cheese casserole on Sunday. We took it to them on Monday. Of course they had no power to heat it up. Fortunately, there were several side dishes that could be eaten cold.
Our part of that casserole stayed in the refrigerator without power all week. We had it Friday evening after power was back on. It was fine. Small victories.

On Monday downtown Iowa City, where our office is located, did not lose power at all.  The secret was simple. No big trees. Underground utility lines.
Our daughter Katie, who is a disaster expert, explains that in the hurricane prone areas, they cut down their big trees and put up butt art. This is called preparedness. We understand.
There was phone and internet at the office too.

Tuesday morning we began to appreciate the destruction around us.
A neighbor lost half of an enormous copper beech tree in their front yard.
They had planted the tree over 40 years ago.

Other trees, such as an enormous catalpa up the street on Summit Street, were just gone. It had crashed into the nearby apartment building, taking out several windows on the upper two floors. Some pictures of a little fairy garden posted earlier this year were taken at the base of that tree.

One of the trees I liked the most in the neighborhood was a tree, perhaps a linden, over on Friendship. It was the straightest tree in the neighborhood, going up maybe 30 feet before there was any branch. It snapped at about 12 feet off the ground. Great big old trunk, only with nothing above 12 feet. As I drove by it yesterday there were two squirrels climbing up the tree. Only the tree just ended. The squirrels were going to be confused.


Tuesday morning we took our fastest showers in history. 1.5 minutes.
In fact the stored hot water lasted for the 3 days of no power. 6 showers, all with enough hot water.
Small pleasures.

Tuesday during the day the internet and phone went out at work. At least we lost those things for part of the day. I was trying to prepare for my first actual in-person court hearing on Thursday. The hearing wound up being by phone.


Tuesday evening the houses across the street on College Street got power. We know they are on a different electric line from us. Sometimes we have power and they do not. This time we knew there were downed lines down the street and around the corner. That was where our power comes from. No one was working on those lines at that point.


By Tuesday we were learning about being without power.
You walk into a dark room and your hand just moves by itself to the light switch.
We were taking the cell phone charger to the office to recharge the phone there.

On Tuesday we had dinner on the front porch with Maggie.  Maggie brought ground beef and buns and we had hamburgers on the grill. Charcoal still worked. It was actually our first meal with her since the pandemic struck. Remember the pandemic?
It was kind of fun, eating a picnic on the front porch. We got to say hello to everyone walking by. There was lots of foot traffic as people wandered around, just looking.


Wednesday all this being without power was getting old. We were worrying about our frozen food. A monthly delivery from our Alaskan community-supported fishery came on Wednesday. We took it to the neighbors who had freezer space. They also froze our freezer packs, returning them the next day, for the coolers.

Wednesday was also the day when Elisabeth was off to the hospital to have the baby. The word at that point was that nothing was happening and things were in waiting mode,

By Thursday we were really tired of no power.
(When I write this on Saturday I can only think about people who still have no power. A lot of the city of Cedar Rapids is in that condition. We still hear the occasional sound of a generator and know what that means.)
We were told that the baby was going to be born that day.

We sometimes go home from work a little early.
But not this week that is ending. We were not going early to a powerless house.
It had warmed up. It is August. Every window was open and the house had warmed up.
Somewhere some flies had gotten in. It was miserable in a lots-of-minor-annoyances-on-top-of-a-big- problem way.

I walked down the street and there were many trucks working on the power lines that were down. That was a great sign.
They seemed to be packing up for the day, with all new lines in place.  I spoke to a guy in a truck.
He explained that it was his job to throw the switch.
In 30 minutes it should be on, if there were no problems.
I went home and passed along the encouraging news.
But after an hour and no power, it was dark and only about 8:30.
We just were not ready to light the candles and soldier on.
So we headed to bed, earlier than I can ever remember.

At about 9 p.m. the power came on.
I did 3 loads of clothes that evening.
I closed windows. I put things in the cooler back in the refrigerator
Clean clothes. The prospect of normal showers. And working landlines (all our phones are cordless, which is convenient but requires electricity). And the opportunity to assess the contents of the freezer and refrigerator (which turned out to be fine). And cooked food.

And all this time we were waiting for news about the baby.

The Baby

Margaret Ross, to be called Maisie we are told, was born about 5 in the morning, on Friday, August 14, our time. She is 8 pounds of healthy baby girl.
We had finally gotten to sleep about 11 Thursday night. There was power.
We had been waiting for the ping of the text message all night.
There had been a ping at 4 am. That was from our Maggie, in Iowa City. She was letting us know her power had just come on.

We got the ping from Maine before 6.
Here is the first picture, with Elisabeth.

Here she is with Katie.
It seems fitting that the room had an almost Grant Wood picture of...Maine.

Here are more pictures, from yesterday. They all went home. Christopher, now 3 and a half (the half is very important) , got to meet his sister.























Christopher brought her his favorite airplane to sleep with.

The garden

It was hard to pay attention to the garden this week. What I did was mostly cleanup.
The front yard was cleaned up by Monday evening.
A neighbor brought a chain saw for the biggest walnut tree limb. It was about 9 inches in diameter and maybe 5 feet long.
I saved it to give my cabinet maker. When I checked with him, he had 3 downed entire walnut trees at his house. He did not need my limb.

It turned out that we met a print maker walking by who could use it. It did not have to go to the piles along the streets waiting to be picked up by the city.














There were bright spots in the garden. Here were a few mostly from yesterday.


Here is Summer Hymns, the daylily that is one of the late ones.
With half the top of the Sycamore gone, there will be more sun on the west side of the backyard.
I am already thinking about what might move where.






Here is another picture of Volcanic Explosion. It is reaching to the sky, perhaps recognizing that it has more light.






Starry Starry Night (the perennial hibiscus) was blooming all week.
Some of the biggest blooms came yesterday.




More pictures of Starry Starry night.






This little hoya bloomed also yesterday. The hoya are approaching their second bloom season, after one in late May.





True damage?
One gazing ball was smashed. All the spinny things came through just fine. The ceramic llama head made it.
Several shepherd hooks were twisted. I do not know what can be done with them
But the little metal tree I got as a father's day present 10 years ago survived, along with the little airplant from Florida which hangs in the metal tree.
All in all the garden is fine.

The backyard sale plants were not hurt.
In fact counting some major purchases last Sunday, before the storm, we have now passed $2600.
And the daylilies for the sale are just going to be available in the next two weeks.

Julia's Recipe

Blueberry Pound Cake

It was quite a week, as Philip has noted. I did not cook much this week, as we had no power for most of the week. We worried about the freezer full of pork and fish, but everything was okay, probably because the freezer actually was pretty full. One tiny piece of silver lining - I didn't need to plan a menu for the coming week. I'm going to cook last week's dishes. And I already have most of the ingredients. One non-silver lining - we could not order produce from the on-line farmer's market because 1) it is strictly on-line for ordering and 2) we did not have internet during the window to order. So we will get back to it this coming week. And of course, there was the wonder of the new baby to be enjoyed, even if from afar.

On to this week's recipe.  I had made this recipe a couple of weeks ago, so am able to share it even though I did not cook much this week.

I love blueberries and I love desserts with lemon. Although I am not a big fan of cake (I prefer pie), this is a lovely lemon pound cake with blueberries sprinkled in. It is baked in a loaf pan, so more like a moist lemony quick bread than cake. A plus, to my mind. I remembered a recipe for a cake with lemon and blueberries from the Laurel's Kitchen or the Moosewood cookbook, both of which have now gone the way of all things. So I took to the internet and found this recipe on the onceuponachef website.



The ingredients for the cake: 1/2 cup milk; 2 lemons to yield 1 tablespoon + 1/2 teaspoon of lemon zest and also about 1/4 cup of lemon juice; 2 cups + 1 teaspoon of regular flour; 1/4 teaspoon baking soda; 1/4 teaspoon regular salt; 1 cup blueberries - fresh or frozen (if frozen, do not thaw!); 1/2 cup (i.e., 1 stick) butter; 1-1/4 cups regular white sugar and 2 eggs.

There's a glaze which uses a bit of the lemon zest and juice noted above plus some powdered (a/k/a confectioner's) sugar, about 1 cup.


First I prepped the loaf pan, 9" x 5". I sprayed it and then lined it with parchment and sprayed the parchment. No, I don't know if all that lubing up was necessary. That's what the recipe said, and I decided not to chance stickage. When I use parchment in a loaf pan or a square pan, I clamp it to the sides of the pan with binder clips from the office. They are handy in the kitchen. They are the all metal black and silver clips. They don't touch the food; they are metal so do fine in the oven; and they hold the parchment, which tends not to stay put, in place. I heated the oven to 350 degrees.

I had taken the butter out earlier in the day so it had softened. It is summer and things soften pretty quickly on the counter.

After finishing with the pan prep, I zested and juiced (in that order) the lemons. It really takes 2 good sized lemons to get the amount of zest you will need. I had a bit of lemon juice left over when all was said and done, which I added to the bottle of lemon juice in the fridge.

I put the blueberries in a little bowl and mixed in the 1 teaspoon of flour (mine were fresh; same method for frozen).





Next, I measured the 1/2 cup of milk into a measuring cup and added 1 tablespoon of lemon zest and 2 tablespoons of lemon juice. I set it aside to curdle, on purpose.

Having completed the prep steps, I got started. I creamed the butter and sugar. I used a hand mixer. A stand mixer would be good, especially if the butter is not squishy soft. I mixed for about 2 minutes, until the butter/sugar mixture was light and fluffy. Really.












Then I added the eggs, one at a time, scraping the sides of the bowl after each egg.


Next  (not shown), I added the baking soda and the salt and beat them in. Then I beat in about 3/4 cup of the flour. After that, I added 1/2 of the milk mixture and beat that in. Then another 3/4 cup of flour, more mixing, then the rest of the milk mixture, then more mixing, then the last 1/2 cup of flour, then more mixing - with bowl-scraping as needed.






After the batter was smooth, I gently stirred in the lightly floured blueberries, using the spatula I had been scraping the sides of the bowl with.















I scraped the batter into the prepared pan and smoothed the top with the spatula and popped it in the oven. I think it took about 50 - 55 minutes. Maybe a bit longer. It's done when a tester comes out clean, although you may need to poke the cake a couple of times to find a place where you don't hit a blueberry - which won't tell you if the cake is done. I have a bunch of bamboo skewers which are great cake/quick bread testers.







When the cake came out of the oven, I let it cool in the pan on a trivet for about 10 minutes.















Then I lifted the parchment out and let the cake cool completely on a cake rack.

















After a few more minutes, I could slide it off the parchment.

As the cake was cooling, I made the glaze: 1/2 teaspoon of lemon zest (or whatever you have left - at least 1/4 teaspoon), 2 tablespoons of the lemon juice and about 3/4 - 1 cup of powdered sugar, whisked together in a little bowl.










When the cake was completely cool, I put it on a plate and then spooned the glaze over top, letting it drip where it would.














Here it is, cut. I see that the slice and the cut end of the cake have a smiley-face appearance. Which is odd. The cake is very good - moist, lemony, blueberryish.

Odds and the End

Much of the garden looks the same.

The cacti, with their buds, avoided any mishap.

Here is one of those buds.





The back yard is about the same, once the tree limbs are removed.
That will take a few more hours, and someone with a chain saw.






With such a storm we got maybe a half inch of rain. Rain was not its feature.
At this point the garden is dry. I will get the hoses out probably today.
It is August. Sometime it is dry.



What a week.
Welcome Margaret Ross.
We are trying to fix this world for you and Christopher.
Philip and Julia