I am writing on Monday afternoon still extremely grateful to have power. I cannot begin to imagine life in a city during a major weather event with no electricity. I am fortunate to have a wood stove and a gas range. The bad news for me, however, is having a well, which of course means no water without power. I have jugs and buckets everywhere filled with water.

My kids have poked fun at me for years. I saved up a bunch of water after the nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl in the mid-1980s. I was convinced all water would be polluted worldwide. I’ve never claimed sanity in this area.

At any rate, I did a major vegetable picking on Saturday and washed everything in the event of power failure. It was wonderful today to have salad makings at the ready. Too bad I don’t do that regularly.

There is nothing like the threat of a good storm to motivate me. I did quite a bit of winter yard clean up in a record amount of time. I hauled in most of my begonias and geraniums. Hard to believe it’s almost November and we haven’t had a freeze. You have to love Vineyard living, especially in the fall.

I watched my beautiful sugar maple being completely stripped of its leaves today. I do hate a brisk wind in the fall as it brings on the denuded winter landscape much too quickly.

I’m mentally exhausted. I spent too much time this past weekend over-thinking storm preparation. On Saturday evening, I gave myself a much-needed break and went to the Agricultural Hall for soup and music. The event was sponsored by Island Grown Initiative. We are moving forward in planning for a slaughterhouse on-Island. People will be able to raise meat and have it processed here instead of the expensive trip off-Island with animals. Thank you to all involved in this project. As you know, we already have a mobile poultry processing unit. Large animal processing will put us closer to food independence.

Marie and I dug our sweet potatoes. Some were quite large and, boy, were they ever delicious. We decided to attempt propagating our own next year. When ordered as slips from a seed company, they arrive late in the season. I think we can root our own and grow in a hoop house to extend the season. They do require a long growing time.

I’ve misplaced my notes. I like to jot down observations I make all week of the gardening successes of others. This week, my major observation was of boats on trailers. The boating community certainly took storm warnings seriously. I was saddened to hear of the loss at sea of the HMS Bounty. I remember boarding her in the Vineyard Haven Harbor a few years ago. She was a beautiful vessel. I might have to rent Mutiny on the Bounty to see her once more. I wouldn’t mind watching Marlon Brando again either!

The other sad news last week was the death of George McGovern. A decorated war hero, he ran for president on an “end the Vietnam war” platform. He suffered a bad loss, and I must say that awakened me to politics in a whole new way. The realization that I did not think like the majority of Americans was hard to swallow. Joe Biden gave a wonderful speech at the funeral. He spoke in his usual heartfelt way to the children about how great a man was their father.

Oh! One more thing concerning this megastorm. Isn’t it odd that neither presidential candidate has even said the word climate change?

I took a completely subjective poll of friends and kindred spirits: which would you prefer, a hurricane or Mitt Romney? Everyone chose a hurricane. At least it ends in a few days.