coming home to the aftermath

And it wasn’t necessarily Hurricane Irene that devastated a huge amount of foliage and property here, but an unnamed storm that came a week later – one that was barely mentioned on the weather networks or news reports.

And the most devastation in my life – my beloved passion fruit vine.
I guess if your house is safe and your greatest loss is a plant, you’re doing well. But still…
I know Cathy on Cat Island commiserates.

This is how she looked the day we left to visit family in Canada.

Our landscaper told me that she had to be “cut back” a bit due to damage.

Cut back a bit?

My pergola is open to the sky. Sheesh.
It used to be full and filled with fruit.

Here’s my passion fruit.

sniff…

On the other hand – this was our view when we left for Canada.

Nice, we could see some of the ocean but knew that as the coconut grove would grow, we’d see more coconut than ocean.

The coconut grove was hit pretty bad.

So we will see more ocean until there is more growth. I don’t love seeing the road and the beach path, but I know the foliage will come back. All that is supposed to be invisible.

The front of the house – our banana.

And plants – before.

And after – a bit thinner.

But not horrible. Though we shouldn’t really see that road either…

Our neighbour’s house, still boarded up, fared pretty well. Their back patio is above the beach, and Rudi says it is very eroded and dangerously cliff-like on one corner.

But their house protected all of our little plantlings on the lower road part of the house.

Which are growing nicely!

So, the weather gives and it takes away. I agree, as Steve Jobs explained, that death is the change agent. It is required in nature as much as in life. Forests have fires so the old is destroyed and the new can emerge. And now I see how that works on a tiny island in the south Atlantic, in the West Indies.

We will go for a drive later today and see how other spots on this wee cay fared.

My gratefuls – That we’re home and my tummy and energy are recovering from the two day’s journey it took to get here. That we have rain, lots of rain, so everything is green and growing. That Timou is a good boy and he remembers his words and sounds after our 10-week absence in his life. That Rudi is great at going to LVA and calling home and reading me the names/flavours of the ice cream so I can choose one.

~ by photokunstler on 25 October 2011.