The weekend is not getting an auspicious start; last night the power went out after a high wind (so far only rumored to be a tornado) hit this side of town. Trees toppled like Jenga blocks (next door lost an immense hackberry, but it nicely tipped in the direction of the creek, resting on their steel fence (but it doesn't look bent). No houses or durable out buildings hit. Plastic portable buildings are a bit scattered but will probably reassemble when the tree roots are removed. Interesting that I've started looking at getting the roof replaced. My patio cover lost a plank last night, I may end up having it replaced also.

Our mutual handyman friend has already been over to look at the downed tree job as we operate with their generator starting this morning. (I got a new heavier gauge 100' cord to use just for this purpose; the last one was ok but had been purchased for yard work, not connection to a generator).

Recently several of my power backup devices were fully charged, though I missed the electric Coleman lantern, so Last night in the kitchen I read a book by a dim little light on the Stanley FatMax until I went to bed and read with a flashlight perched on my shoulder - just like so much of my childhood reading.

This is written via phone hotspot on the laptop plugged into the power strip that I now keep next to the kitchen window on a folding bookshelf (the type that Charmion just purchased and set up for all of her books). Last spring during an outage I found myself again retrieving a power strip to use here so decided to keep a dedicated power strip in the kitchen for generator use. Two or three times a year it gets plugged into the generator, the rest of the time it's where I keep a few small appliances plugged in.

Not going anywhere for a while, I'd have to disconnect the garage door opener and manually lift it. I have fully charged camera batteries so I can use the time to take photos of some of my eBay listings that will go up soon. Or clean house. There's a lot of dust and clutter to address, should I choose.

Yesterday I mailed my ballot for the Nov. 4 election. That's probably the most important thing of this entire post.