Oh, no, not again!

Guess what. Another hurricane is bearing down on Central Florida.

Like many folks around here, I haven't quite recovered from Hurricane Charley. Now, big, mean @#X@#!! Hurricane Frances is coming at us. Frances is big, too, a heck of a lot bigger than Charley, big enough to cover the state with her bands. She's a Category 4. Just swell.

Thank goodness, some church friends had come by and cut up the big pine tree Charley toppled. Its top was caught in some viny growth in the wild hammock along the edge of my property, and in another windstorm, it could have ended up on top of my well or crushing the chain link fence below. A semi-retired Father-type from church, his grandson and a couple of their friends labored over that tree for several hours. {{{thank you, guys!}}}

Adding trial and tribulation, my well pump went out last weekend. I jiggled and cussed it; a friend came over and checked it; I finally broke down and called the well company (sigh..can't afford these expenses). The service guy said a couple of capacitors had burned out. It wasn't as expensive a repair as I feared it might be, though, which is the good news. At least I didn't have to spring for a new pump motor.

I had to get the well running, so I could start stockpiling water for Hurricane Frances. I spent some time yesterday evening and this morning filling up my motley collection of plastic jugs and pots with water. I want enough to last 5 days, because with everything so saturated now, Hurricane Frances' winds and rains will pull down a lot of trees and the power lines will come down with them. Frances is expected to take her time moving across the state, taking about 24 hours, plenty of time for her to dump 10 inches of rain. We may have tropical storm-to-hurricane winds for 24-36 hours.

I hit the grocery store last night and again this morning, stocking up on coffee, sterno, charcoal, nonperishables and steak. Yes, steak. I can cook out on the grill after the storm goes by!!!!

Luckily, I had already stocked up on batteries, because the stores were running out of them again.

We shouldn't be getting bad weather until tomorrow evening or early Saturday, when the tropical stuff preceding the hurricane starts rolling in. The eye won't be in this area before Sunday. Some models are now calling for it to stay on a westerly course instead of turning more to the north, which will put us on the northeast side of the hurricane, which may not be an advantage -- it's nasty on that side of hurricanes.

So we're just playing a waiting game. Hoping and praying and waiting to see what Frances does next.