Tempête !

I don't think the wind is as bad as the weather reports said it was going to be. They told us to expect, and to prepare for, virtually hurricane-force winds of 120 kph (72 mph). I think Brittany got the worst of the storm, along with the British Isles. Here's the post I wrote yesterday, thinking that we might be in the dark this morning:

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It's not often that I write my blog post the day before I put it up on the 'net. My normal routine is to get up between 5:30 and 6:30 a.m., go down and make some coffee or tea, and then sit down in front of my laptop computer and put something together.

 The view out the back window at about 6 p.m. Monday night

Today's post is pre-programmed. We are supposed to have a heavy-duty windstorm starting around midnight tonight (it's Monday afternoon as I type) and continuing all through the day tomorrow, which is Christmas Eve. Even though the electric lines coming up out of the river valley to our hamlet have now been undergrounded, and we stand less of a chance of having a local power failure because of trees falling on the lines, we could well be victim to a much wider-scale outage when this storm comes through.

This the 4.85 lb. Guinea fowl capon that we are hoping to be able to cook Weds. a.m., Christmas Day 2013.
It's fermier et élevé en plein air, which means farm-raised and free-range.

So here's a post for Christmas Eve, written on Christmas Eve eve. We have a plan in place that will allow us to enjoy our traditional December 24 cheese fondue, even without electricity. Maybe the current will come back on — if it does indeed go out tonight or tomorrow morning — by Christmas Day so that we will be able to roast our Guinea fowl capon and cook our squash and collard greens.

I went out to the garden this morning picked a big mess of collard greens to cook for our Christmas Dinner.

If you are reading this, it means we are in the dark today, Tuesday, Christmas Eve, 2013. The wood- burning stove will keep us warm. Winds are supposed to gust up to 60 mph. Earlier, they were predicting 70 to 75 mph winds, but they've scaled that back. Our house is especially vulnerable to high winds. Wish us luck.

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The wind is really whooshing through the trees outside, but TV, Internet, and electricity are still on here. I imagine we are having gusts at 60 mph (100 kph) right now, and the vents tempétueux are supposed to continue until this afternoon, with heavy rain. I think I'll get to work sorting through my greens and preparing them for cooking this morning.