Weather Fearcasts

Ok, Ok, I get it.  There is a big storm coming our way.  Hurricane Irene.  Perhaps the mother of all storms, landing thud right on my vegetable garden just when I've managed to pick a few decent home grown tomatoes. 
What's that you say? It hasn't even hit the US mainland yet.   It could fizzle.  Nice try, Mr Calm.  Take your skepticism down the hall.  This time the sky IS falling!...this time it's gonna be a trillion dollar disaster!  The New York City subways and Tunnels will be flooded because of an 8 foot tidal surge.  Boston will be inundated with 5 or 10 inches of rain.  Your basement will have at least 7 inches of water just like March of 2010.  This will be the second "hundred-year" event in three years!

The forecasters and news readers have become gleeful fearmongers.  They are running out of scary scenarios. In panic, property owners are rushing to batten-down hatches, or pulling  their boats from the water, and vacationers are checking-out early so they will not be stuck when the big winds begin to blow.   The supermarkets are doing a brisk business selling drinking water and batteries.  Liquor stores are selling out of scotch and gin.  People are scared.  For once in my life, I do not feel envy for people with beachfront property and a nice cabin cruiser tied -up at the marina.

It's been a classic Man vs Nature month so far.  A Richter 5.9 earthquake hit Virginia last week, and the tremors were apparently felt by some locals here in Boston metro west.  Obviously not folks like us who live within a few blocks of the RR tracks.  We get  the equivalent of  5.9 temblors every time a freight train goes by -- and often accompanied by a piercing blast from their high decibel horns as a lagniappe. 

President Obama has been vacationing on Martha's Vineyard, and was playing golf when the ground shook. Reportedly, he blamed the quake for a missed putt.

I have been fighting my own personal war against nature, in my losing effort to harvest ripe tomatoes.  My foes, the chipmunks and squirrels have been winning, despite heavy losses ( at least 12 casualties verified) on their side, thanks to my knuckle-breaker rat traps.  I bait them with pieces of tomato so the only rodents I have slain were tomato eaters.  The squirrels have been repelled by shiny CD's hung on fishing line.  They catch the light and turn in the slightest breeze, which spooks the squirrels, and i have not seen one near the vines.     In recent weeks, the traps have begun to loosen the chipmunks' stronghold on my garden. I have managed to pick a few ripe ones -- and our salads are to die for.  I have offered amnesty to all non tomato eating chipmunks.  Victory will soon be ours!  (That is, unless Irene wrecks everything.)

Stay tuned.

UPDATE:  Aug 28th
Irene where is thy sting?
Looks like I am not the only one to think the hype was overdone 
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/28/hurricane-irene-hype-how-the-media-went-overboard.html