I'd say Earl was very similar to Noel in 2007, except Earl has hardly any rain in it (on this side of the eye anyway).

Two days later and our lawn is still crispy dry.

Here is the start of the rain:

But the rain didn't last too long and the rest of the storm was just wind.

We lost power and decided to go down to the lake to watch the storm come in. Our driveway erosion got a little worse, but it was already bad.

We were without power for 6 hours. I have no idea how we got so lucky. Our neighbours just a couple km's away just got their power back this afternoon, 48 hours later.

This tree kept them in the dark:

We have several trees damaged around our house, but nothing that is too serious. We have some ugly, half dead trees around the drainage hole in our lawn, south of the house, and one of them broke and is leaning now. We have been planning on cutting them down anyway.

This storm took down trees and limbs everywhere. There aren't too many yards that don't have at least a few large limbs down on their lawn. This is probably because the trees are still in full leaves and are more susceptible to damage. Leaves were flying by all day. (By the way, leaves hurt when they hit you when the winds are up around 100km/hr.)

Lots of short sticks with half a dozen leaves attached are all over the ground. The gravel road on the other side of the lake looks like mother nature was trying to disguise it by covering it with leaves and short sticks.

The side of our house has pulverized leaves stuck to it:

I didn't see too many huge old healthy trees get knocked down. Some are blown over and ripped out of the ground. Most of the trees down are just large limbs off of trees. When we drove around yesterday we saw over a dozen trees on the lines between Sherbrooke and Sonora. Sherbrooke was alive with the sound of generators.

Here is a tree that was down behind our community centre down the road:

My black eyed susans took a serious lean:

Our green pepper plants in the garden all were pulled out by the roots and were lying flat in a row. Two of the red cabbages are pulled out too. All the tomato cages were all leaning. The beans are a mess, but were growing on stakes so they are still up.

A twitter friend who lives nearby on the ocean said all of her bedding plants and shrubs are dead from the salt spray off the ocean.

So, overall, we did really well. It was nice to have the storm hit during the day so we could watch, and not just be scared in the dark. And it was a real treat to have power back before dark. Jeff had just fired up the generator to plug the fridge in for awhile when the power kicked in.

I was standing near our house taking some videos. In this one, just a few seconds in, a tree cracks beside me and I freak out and start rushing back to the house.

‎6:00am. Foggy, so humid and sticky. 22C. Breeze is picking up.

CBC Radio out of Halifax is broadcasting full storm coverage. Brett Anderson of Accuweather was right all along and the path is much further east than everyone else was thinking until yesterday.

We aren't expecting the full brunt of the storm, but we are supposed to get heavy winds and some rain. Our driveway washing away is our biggest concern.

6:25am - A couple raindrops. We currently have a Wind Warning and a Tropical Storm Warning.

6:34am - Interesting - while the U.S. hurricane centre has downgraded Hurricane Earl to a tropic storm, the Canadian hurricane centre is on the radio saying they still have measurements at hurricane 1 strength.

8:46am - Not much change yet. It's breezy with a bit of rain. It is so sticky our feet are grossly sticking to the floor. The hurricane is now supposed to hit much closer to Halifax than expected and the county we are on the border of, Guysborough county, now has a hurricane watch too.

9:30am - Power outages all over the southern end of Nova Scotia. 7,900 customers out now. Jeff is outside right now trying to dig some little trenches on the driveway to divert the approaching rain off the driveway.

9:33am - Make that 11,886 customers without power now.

9:36am - Wow - 14,547 now. Please let us keep power for awhile longer!

9:51am - 27,000 without power now. Little cooler out now. Gas truck was just blown off the road somewhere near Halifax.

10am - Waves are sounding louder on our lake now. RCMP have blocked sightseers idiots from the beaches and away from Peggy's Cove. 29,091 without power.

10:11am - First big gust. My friend Chrissy is down near where the storm is coming ashore and her poplar tree tops are almost touching the ground from the wind!

10:31am - Windier now. Canada's Hurricane Centre said they just saw a confirmed wind of 120kph reading from offshore buoy...so Earl is still a Category 1 storm.

10:53am - 39,457 customers without power now. Sporadic strong wind gusts here and light rain. Confederation Bridge to PEI is closed to high sided tall traffic.

11:01am - Trees and powerlines down in Halifax in advance of the storm. Power apparently flickering in Antigonish. Zeus the cat is acting a little clingy. Halifax airport is reporting 74 km/hr winds now with gusts to 104 km/hr. 43,997 houses in the dark.

11:18am - Nova Scotia Power is on the radio. Some power restoration estimate times are into Monday, but will be reassessed regularly. 56,843 customers without power. Getter wetter here. I'm getting hungry. Jeff's thinking of bbq'ing burgers. He's a diehard bbq - no hurricane will stop him!

11:46am - Sheets of rain coming down now. 79,728 customers out of power now. Power flicked a couple times. Jeff tested out our little generator and now is plotting to run the TV & Bell satellite TV with it, alternated with the freezer, if our power goes out.

12:12pm - 111,793 without power now. We still have power. Power is out just south of us. Very close. So far it isn't much worse here than a normal storm. Nothing compared to Hurricane Noel... yet..

12:38pm - Getting wilder here now. Our burgers were incredible. Jeff is out surveying the driveway. We haven't got THAT much rain so it shouldn't be too bad. 127,933 homes without power now. White birch in front of the house is getting blown pretty good now. Jeff is cheering for it to get blown down.

12:51pm - Over 400 houses without power in our neighbourhood. Luckily not us. Jeff reports that we had a bit of erosion on the driveway so far, but the trenches he dug are doing well. Some great wind gusts once in awhile.

1:07pm - I run all my computer equipment through a UPS so I have clean power. It has kicked over to battery twice in the last few minutes indicting our incoming voltage was too high or low. I'm thinking about going down to the lake to shoot some video for you. Gusts are getting serious here now. 152,892 without power, including more and more around us.

11:45am, 2 days later - And we're back! We only lost power for 6 hours, but power was out everywhere, including to our wireless internet towers so we had no internet, until now! Check back later - I'll post a full post-hurricane review, with photos, and video.

--

Check back for updates.
If the webcam and I go offline, assume the power is out.
But you can follow Nova Scotia's power outages online too:
http://www.nspower.ca/en/home/residential/outageinformation/liveoutagemap.aspx

This is a katydid and he was hanging out in the full, hot, bright sun last weekend, on my last lily:

I think this is the fork tailed bush katydid (Scudderia furcata).

It is pointed out of my office window on the first storey of our house.

So you can now watch our weather, as we see it, until the power or wireless internet go down.

http://lisaschuyler.com/live/webcam.html

Right now, there is nothing to see, except a spider who keeps walking across the window. If the hurricane follows its forecast path, rain and wind will pick up on Friday night.

I have a low light booster turned on so you can see some things at night.

If you want way better action (since we're not on the coast), you see can several very high quality webcams at http://www.novascotiawebcams.com (including cams from Peggy's Cove, Halifax Harbour, Bay of Fundy, Digby, and Cape Breton).

"Don't get a mohawk and an old lead pipe, strap yourself into some motorcycle leathers or latex, form a post-apocalyptic survival gang with your friends and family to hunt down, kill and eat your neighbours. A hurricane is not that big a deal in Atlantic Canada. Most will get away unscathed, with property damage or a bit of flooding the worst of it. The rain will stop and the sun will come out eventually---the day after Juan was gorgeous and sunny. Cannibalism is rarely necessary."

~ from http://www.thecoast.ca/halifax/when-the-canes-come/Content?oid=1691679

Hurricane Earl's track has shifted slightly to the west. Lots of different models to look at. Canada's Hurricane Centre have the track further east than the US's. Storm warnings will be issued tomorrow!

Hurricane LISA is coming to an ocean near you!

Here is the list of Storm Names for 2010
Alex, Bonnie, Colin, Danielle, Earl, Fiona, Gaston, Hermine, Igor, Julia, Karl, Lisa, Matthew, Nicole, Otto, Paula, Richard, Shary, Tomas, Virginie, Walter

It's only August... think we can work our way up to 'L' ?

Hurricane Earl is still forecast to hit Nova Scotia on Saturday as a Hurricane TWO.

Hurricane Tracking links:
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/
http://www.stormpulse.com/atlantic
http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/hurricane/track_e.html

Oh, and if you are interested in upcoming hurricane names, here is 2011-2015 for ya!

2011 Storm Names
Arlene, Bret, Cindy, Don, Emily, Franklin, Gert, Harvey, Irene, Jose, Katia, Lee, Maria, Nate, Ophelia, Philippe, Rina, Sean, Tammy, Vince, Whitney

2012 Storm Names
Alberto, Beryl, Chris, Debby, Ernesto, Florence, Gordon, Helene, Isaac, Joyce, Kirk, Leslie, Michael, Nadine, Oscar, Patty, Rafael, Sandy, Tony, Valerie, William

2013 Storm Names
Andrea, Barry, Chantal, Dorian, Erin, Fernand, Gabrielle, Humberto, Ingrid, Jerry, Karen, Lorenzo, Melissa, Nestor, Olga, Pablo, Rebekah, Sebastien, Tanya, Van, Wendy

2014 Storm Names
Arthur, Bertha, Cristobal, Dolly, Edouard, Fay, Gonzalo, Hanna, Isaias, Josephine, Kyle, Laura, Marco, Nana, Omar, Paulette, Rene, Sally, Teddy, Vicky, Wilfred

2015 Storm Names
Ana, Bill, Claudette, Danny, Erika, Fred, Grace, Henri, Ida, Joaquin, Kate, Larry, Mindy, Nicholas, Odette, Peter, Rose, Sam, Teresa, Victor, Wanda

I've told you before, I'm a hurricane junkie.

I pin myself to all my sources of information during hurricane season. I've got the hurricane tracking websites bookmarked. I subscribe to multiple RSS feeds and email notification lists so I always know the LATEST information. I check the satellite shots, and the current models of impending storms. I watch throughout the day as the hurricane's predicted path is updated. Heck, I've even slept with the TV on before watching the CNN anchors track the eye walls, and measure the storm surges.

I've gotta tell ya, the ultimate thrill of watching on TV is watching an expendable young journalist have to hold a sign pole, or a railing, or better yet -get knocked off their feet!

Who would have ever thought I'd move from fairly-hurricane proof northern Ontario to Nova Scotia! Where hurricanes actually hit!!

My first taste of a hurricane came shortly after we moved here. Hurricane Noel arrived in the fall of 2007. It was a tropical storm by the time it hit, but it was a wild ride! It hit through the night and it was scary! I was sure our roof was holding on by one last nail and the next gust was going to take it away. There was plenty of damage and thousands of downed trees, but we weathered the storm.

Right now, the forecast is showing the possibility of Hurricane Earl hitting Nova Scotia as a Hurricane 2 on Friday night/Saturday morning. Because that it days away, almost anything can happen in the meantime.

It's crazy, but I almost cheer for these storms to "come and get us!" Do I think I'm invincible? Or am I some sort of hurricane thrill chaser?

Stay tuned... I'm headed to Walmart for supplies....

The sun is almost tucked behind the other side of our valley at just 7:20pm tonight. Fog forms a layer between the surface of the lake and the top of the valley each night. By morning our vehicles are completely fogged over and I need to keep the defrost and wipers on for the first few minutes of my drive to work to keep the condensation off my window.

This year was our second attempt at vegetable gardens and we are having success!! Our green beans are incredible. No bean I've ever had tasted this good. What are those green things they label green beans in our grocery stores? They certainly don't compare to these green pieces of heaven.

Our tomatoes are doing better than last year too. We've eaten 3 of them now, and Jeff brought in a few more that should be ready for tomorrow night.

Our garden is little, and it is an on-going experiment to see what we can grow here. Our red cabbage is growing, but still hasn't really folded itself into a cabbage yet. The lettuce only gave us one good salad before it flowered. Our green and jalapeño peppers are just starting to produce peppers that are about 0.5cm in size still so I guess we don't really have a climate for peppers here.

Next year we're thinking about having a chicken coop with some meat birds. I used to "help" my dad when he "harvested" our chickens, but I've grown into such a softie I am afraid I will think of them all as pets and not want to "harvest" them.