On Tuesday night, around 6:00, the weather here in southern NJ went medieval on us. Heavy rain, crazy wind, thunder, lightning, and the sound of a freight train barrelling towards us left a path of destruction along the way. The top of one of our old oak trees snapped right off and landed in the middle of the back yard. Another huge branch harpooned the top of Roy’s “man cave”, just missing the gas grill. Not too bad but for miles and miles around us, giant trees rested precariously across electrical wires or had crashed onto cars, homes and major roadways. No power for more than 48 hours.
On Wednesday, the sounds of chain saws and generators filled the air. Friends across the street offered me a cold beer, actually Cidre (yum), and an outlet so I could charge my phone. Someone remarked that the only thing lit and visible the night before were the solar lights in our neighbor’s front yard. A light bulb went off, in my brain. My son, Mike, had given me a box of solar lights and they were still in the box – waiting for me to finish planting whatever I thought I was going to plant along the steps to our front door.
So, yesterday morning, bright and early, Matt and I assembled and planted 8 solar lights and by dusk, they were ready to shine through the darkness in our home. I had so much fun creating emergency lighting by placing solar lights in stemware filled with colored marbles or sea glass, plastic tumblers (in nice fiesta colors), candle holders (fit perfectly), that I just had to share.
Right now 6 solar lights are back outside along the walk recharging and two of them I will keep on my sunny windowsill. One was placed in an old ice cream sundae glass with a scoop of marbles half way up and the other one I filled with clear glass rounds, screwed the top back on and placed it in my favorite cut glass candle holder. Both look beautiful with the sun shining through them (and recharging) and will look beautiful when the sun goes down tonight. Brilliant!
Keep On The Sunny Side!