This is a Drill. Of Thankfulness.

With three places equaling 4 cats and 2 dogs plus a bunch of lawn furniture to take care of pre-Gonzalo, yesterday was a busy day. Three big puppies that had been dumped off at the library also needed safe shelter (thank you, Milton and Teresa for taking them in!). Around the island, boats were being pulled out from the water and put into the mangroves, food markets were busy and we watched and waited.

What looked to be the start of a very long night

Then Gonzalo took a couple of turns, one being that it turned into a hurricane, moving like a tight, fast bullet through the middle of the island chain with Antigua and Sint Marteen in the target zone. Those are the two I heard about last night, I don't know about other islands yet. But those two took a big hit, with roofs being torn off, boats breaking loose and trees falling All of this was going on while our skies lightened and we had brief color at sunset, along with a few heavy rains. That was the other turn. The one that took us out of the danger zone.

Gonzalo is a tight hurricane, with storm winds maxing out at 25 miles from its center. We were lucky. Again.

This morning, low cloud cover didn't stop a bit of color in the dawning and layers of cloud now blanket the sky. The rain was welcome along with the cool temperature.

As I went around checking each home and the critters, I'm debating putting everything to rights or waiting for the next ball of red to either develop or dissipate. From the computer models it doesn't look like anything for concern for us, but I'll give it a day to see what happens next. Just because.

For those islanders who got the brunt of Gonzalo (now looking to be a cat 2 hurricane sooner than later and with Bermuda on watch), we who got spared wish you the fastest of clean ups in the aftermath.

Have a thankful Tuesday. Do something tenderly tenacious.