Post-Nicole

Hurricane Nicole didn't cause as much tree damage as Ian did, but there was a lot of little stuff to pick up -- one of the downsides to having a lot of trees around us. At sunset on the day after the storm the sky began to turn beautiful colors.

I didn't mind the work involved in cleaning up. Everyone has to deal with some kind of recurring weather extreme where they live -- snow, tornadoes, wind spreading wildfires -- and (aside from the years I spent in the military) hurricanes have always been part of my life.

I'd much rather spend a day picking up tree debris than six months shovelling snow, or run to a storm cellar during a tornado, or evacuate in the face of a wildfire. Actually we have wildfires here, too, and one year we almost had to run from one. Anyway, it's not that hurricanes are less destructive. Sometimes, as with mini-tornado that hit us during Irma, they can be terrifying. But more often than not they are just a day or two of wind and rain, and then the clean-up.