Up yours Juan!
Wouldn'tcha know it, Lio-ling has survived her first hurricane ever, whoo! A wonderful little category two hurricane named Juan, the first one experienced by Nova Scotia in 40 years! Yipee skippy! When twas said 'A hurricane cometh!' nobody really took it serious or anywhut, plenty o' hurricanes head up here but they almost always veer off or downgrade to tropical storms or such...*shruggs* Was a right kick in the pants, hoi.

But I shpose we did pretty well over all... we only lost a tree (but it was our prettiest tree! The great fluffy maple that hid us from the neighbours. ;_;) and electricity at about 12:00 the night of the storm...for 121 fricken hours! We were without power from Sunday at midnight to 1:00 AM Saturday morning... -_-; Ah well, as mum said (often) 'At least we have water.' And lots of candles and flashlights, a wood stove, a Coleman's stove, and friends that got power sooner than us (like, on Tuesday!). On the other hand, our BBQ fell over during the storm and broke, but twas okay 'cause it was old and we were gonna replace it anyways...

Amusing happenings:
-One of our willow branches (a big one) broke off, and apparently flew over the roof to land in our front garden. It amused me.

-Though a tree broke in the back yard, the little potted plants in the front didn't even fall over.

-The little lamp on the back of our garage did NOT break or fall off, but instead was twisted sideways. It looks silly.

-We used to have these two huge cement patio blocks, but we had one removed and filled it with soil. After the hurricane we have a supreme downpour of Ultimate DOOom, and the soil there just soaked the water right up. So I come around the corner and I just happen to step on the very corner of the square and SHOOMP! I sink immediately in up to the ankle. 'Course I pulled out right away, but my shoe was just like...a lump of mud. It was funny.

*ponders* Yuuup... our little street thing was nearly blocked off by one HUGE maple, the thing had to have been both taller AND wider than a house that took down a power line on one side, and on the other, two more large trees, another maple and a willow (which snapped a line). All three were uprooted, rather than snapped over like ours was... but the smaller maple took half the lone with it! Twas like a grassy throw rug draped over the roots, it actually dragged along a bush!

One of my mom's friends... now she lost an oak. HUGE thing, trunk that would take to people to encircle... Now IT got TWISTED right off, sheared right off the roots, hit the house (didn't break any windows thankfully) fell on their car, and then into the road...Meef.

I spent the first few days hauling wood and branches about, mostly at my best friend's house. They lost two trees, both quite a bit larger than our own, so there was a lot of work to do... Thankfully her dad had a chainsaw and agreed to help us with the stump, 'cause MY dad was in ENGLAND for all of it! Heh. He got back on Friday...

Ah well. I DID get to miss school for a week. Though my highschool remained COMPLETELY unharmed so I must go back tomorrow... -_-; The community college on the hill above lost half its roof.

At least two people died (one being a paramedic who's ambulance got hit by a tree) during the storm, and I think s'more died in fires caused by candles and I think an apartment building collapsed (no deaths there I dun think...), but overall, we're okay. Yuuup...

Well, that my news update. Ciao!