The whole world seems to be swallowed by a wild sea as i sit here in my kitchen,  listening to the wind of the storm crashing in the rocking trees, the leaves and branches rattling in the claps of ominiusly swirling hot wind, and then suddenly the quiet and the stillness.

As the dark, eerie light fades from the troubled sky and the earth retreats into a wind-swept void outside the door, I can’t help feeling like i have been caught by the storm of Nothing, sweeping away the world into nonexistence in a Michael Ende story.

It’s so much more intense to be out here than in town during terrible storms. I have spent most of the day outside being pushed, pulled, harried, torn, blasted and caressed by this strange tropical wind, feeling the odd breathlessness behind each gasping gust, then feeling minute and shrunken hunkering towards the earth as the whole sky rattles and roars with an angry eddy in the eb of storm. 

The laundry is in. The shutters are closed. In many ways the lack of luxury here makes it easier – there is less to take away. No worry about the outhouse not flushing, or the wood stove not cooking.  

A lot of our food keeps well without refridgeration. One of these days i want a hand pump on the well, but for now i have filled as many buckets and containers as is practical. The animals all have shelter or space to escape.

 There are still anxieties. I have two goats with bad udder wounds from another goat’s horns about to kid, and one little one on the ground already.  All you can do, though, is sit tight,  holding your breath as the wind shakes around you in the night, and wonder what will happen by tomorrow.