Morning after Nicole made landfall

Good morning Folks, 

Thanks for all of your prayers. I was pretty calm, although I have to admit a couple of fear niggles did come up, but I prayed and left them with God. I slept good last night.  We had light rain and some wind all day yesterday until around 9:30 last night when we had about 30 minutes of 'heavy' rain with stronger winds. All in all we got around 2 inches of rain. Winds at that time were 27 mph. 

All night was rather quiet. I woke up around 3:15 checked the weather and saw that Nicole had made landfall north of me about 56 miles away. She hit as a Cat. one hurricane 75 mph winds, but quickly became a tropical storm. At this time she is now over central Florida with winds 60 mph. 

I went outside to take some pictures, the sun was shining then, but now it's cloudy skies again, looks like more rain might be possible.

I loved how the morning sunlight was hitting the pine trees.

This was a bit tricky for me to put up, but I did it. I could not find the plywood top and the front piece is crooked, but hey for me being on my ladder, praying and doing my best I was happy with the results. I did have to tie some rope across the top to tighten it up.

All of the plywood, and this old shutter was what we had on hand without going out and buying new wood. I think I'm going to have to buy new plywood though, and have someone cut me new coverings. I'll keep this shutter though as it's in great shape except for peeling paint which can be sanded. Mark made these around 2003. He cut the heart shapes so that we could see out. He could have just made circles or squares, but he surprised me with the heart shapes. Oh how I miss him!
 

These next pics are of the living room windows inside, and then one outside.

I'm so glad the storm has passed. It's been a somewhat stressful few days preparing, waiting and watching, but we survived. I'm so thankful to God for sparing my having to deal with destructive storms since Mark's been gone. I've had foliage clean up to deal with, but nothing major. They've all gone around me. Well, one a few years back I did go stay with my SIL and BIL north of me, because the storm was headed our way and it did hit. I was there 3-4 days and we were without power. It was good to get home and see nothing was damaged. Each storm is different. 

It looks like the cottage could stand another coat of pain. This paint job is from 2016 and the Florida sun has faded it out.

Ok, that's it from Plum Cottage for now. Just wanted to let you know all is well.

Enjoy the blessing of the gift of each new day.

Love, hugs and prayers,

FlowerLady