Red and Lenore were concerned when I went into the cellar this morning to collect some pails.  This morning, Maria and I focused on what we needed to do and got ready for the storm which looks like it will sail right over the farm. We put out extra pails of water for the animals in case the power goes out. We prepared the indoor stall for Rocky, who will spend two or three days there. We put the chickens in lockdown in their coop where there will be until Wednesday or Thursday.  We set out pans in the pole barn for hay indoors if things get too messy outside. Later, we will free the donkeys up and put Rocky in his stall. The donkeys and sheep will have access to the shelter of the pole barn if they wish to use it. Sometimes animals prefer to be out in storms.

We are filling a bathtub with water in case our pumps shuts down. I will charge up the Ipod and Iphone and Kindle. I’m cooking a multi-grain pizza this afternoon with roast vegetables so we will have some food. I went to the local food co-op in Cambridge. People up here do not panic about storms, even big ones, and there were no lines and plenty of bread, water and vegetables and fruit. We have flashlights with batteries, and we have a fireplace and a wood stove to keep us warm. It is difficult to pierce the screen of hysteria and alarm and grasp  among the media and politicians competing to be sensitive to my needs and safety, and actually determine what is actually going to happen here. I do take it seriously without surrendering to it.

It looks like we will get some high winds – 40 to 70 mph tonight and tomorrow which makes it a good bet to knock the power out as trees and power lines live together in the country.  Not too much rain. It will, of course, be what it will be and we can’t do  anything more about it than keep an eye on the animals and sit by our fire talking and reading and loving one another.

A Buddhist friend suggested that I love Sandy, embrace the storm, accept it as a part of life. That is lot better than listening to these strange people offering their faux sensitivity and idiotic warnings. The people I see worrying about me online and via e-mail – politicians, TV anchors are not the people I would turn to in trouble. And I don’t believe they are spending as much time worrying about me as they are covering their corporate and political asses. I love having neighbors who do care about me and Maria.  I do hear the wind howling outside the window now. Things are heating up. I think we just lost a shutter.

I got an e-mail from my electric company urging me to call them if the power goes out.  Post-Katrina, politicians are falling all over themselves to take every precaution and transmit every warning. Several of my neighbors have come by and let me know I can use their toilets (one has a generator) and get food if we need it. It occurs to me that our culture is filled with corporate and media and political people pretending to be sensitive, yet they are not. This, I think, breeds hypocrisy.

I like the idea of loving what you fear. I till try loving Sandy, a large and beautiful creature with plenty of presence.