A storm, some trees, a sweet pup and some puzzles

With all the drama yesterday, I forgot to set up my post for today.

The day started off with a call from my daughter that her tiny puppy had been attacked by a very large dog, and she didn't think he would survive. That call woke me from a sound sleep (which is rather ironic since the opening of my WIP is somewhat similar - though not with a dog attack).

Fortunately, the vet thinks the wounds appeared worse than they are, and so long as the punctures don't form an abscess, the pup should survive.

Here's our sweet boy in happier times.

I did get to experience a funny benefit of technology as my other daughter and I "babysat" the puppy over Zoom while my daughter took a shower.


Then Hurricane/Tropical Storm Isaias hit. I've been wanting a cozy, rainy day to sit and read and write all summer, but you know the adage about being careful what you wish for. This was a crazy scary day as the winds kicked up and Brooklyn's trees took a bad hit. The storm passed right over us with wind gusts that were not kind to all our beautiful old trees.

Just when we thought it was dying down, a particularly strong gust shook the house. I messaged my daughter to say that one was bad, I felt the house vibrate. Well, as it turns out, what I'd heard was the tree in the front  - that had been planted in 1935 by my neighbor's grandmother - take a fatal blow. The entire top half snapped off and came crashing towards the house, taking out the metal banister on my neighbor's stoop. The front yard was full of tree branches and my house had a fresh smell of "nature" although I didn't know what caused it until I opened the storm shutters in the front to a wall of green.

The mailman had literally just dropped off the mail and left the yard right before the tree came down. I bet he's counting his lucky stars this morning.

This storm was spawning microbursts and tornados all up the coast, so I don't know yet what exactly happened here - we did get a tornado about ten years ago that took out a lot of trees, and then Superstorm Sandy took out quite a few more. Yesterday, walking Fenway once the storm had cleared, I saw a lot of wind damage and branches down.


Anyway, all that is the reason why I forgot to put up a regular post. I had intended to post photos of my daughter's trip to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden that finally reopened to the public last week - on a limited basis of course. But we'll save them for next week,

I'll give you more puppy pictures instead.

This week's batch

Oh, and my daughter also suggested I share that in addition to spending the quarantine baking bread

She has been doing puzzles. She just completed this one (which she sealed and framed)

and the Empire State Building in 3D (which also lights up)

and is now on to this one

Looks rather challenging

So what have you been doing to fill your time. I have to admit, for me it's mostly been writing lately. And binge-watching TV.