Refuge Farms (www.refugefarms.org)

I appreciate Sandy for letting me share her blog so that I can say a few things. First and foremost, I want to thank Sandy and all the members of 'the herd' for their thoughts and continued prayers during this monumental, catastrophic ordeal. I live in Metairie which is a suburb of New Orleans. All of us were caught in the path of destruction caused by Katrina on August 29th. The swath of devastation included the whole Southeastern part of Louisiana and Southern part of Mississippi. The pictures you may have seen on TV didn't even come close to documenting the horrific devastation in which lives will be altered forever. Hundreds of thousands of people lucky just to be alive lost entire generations of belongings and memories...some, sadly, paying the ultimate price of also loosing their loved ones. Unfortunately, there are countless numbers of those that have yet to be found. 16 days without electricity with heat as high as 95 during the day in my apartment I was often thankful when it made it to 85 at night so that I could try and get to what I called 'sleep'...a broken, sweat laden, 2-3 hour dance of misery that seem to make up each night. It was during those times that I, like many other people, began to re-evaluate what was important in life. Things that were once important dropped off the scale relevance. You tend to make this progression away from materialistic things to those of feelings for those close to you. You intensify your emotions for those around you...in my case it was my cats - the very reason I didn't evacuate in the first place. I never felt alone at any time during this ordeal. Whether it was my faith, my cats, or a feeling that there was a 'herd' hard at work praying for my safe return...I felt blessed. I am very fortunate for my losses were minimal compared to the losses of others. I stayed high and dry and was fortunate enough to have neighbors who resupplied me during the 16 days without power. I have a friend in Mississippi who lost everything...in the period of one hour 50 years of living, possessions, and memories were erased from the face of the earth. It would be foolish of me to ever complain about anything. Always remember...things could be worse, all you have to do is look around. Your prayers and thoughts will stay with me for a long time...thank you!

Vincent (webmaster)