🌀Hurricane Milton: Before, During & After (Ground Zero Reporting)

Okay Mike, it is early Wednesday morning and it has begun. So I figured this might be a good way to report in just so that you can get a sense of how powerful the winds are or are not. But and also back there right behind the gate there's a slope of six feet so that area down there is six feet lower than the upper area. So if that starts looking like a swimming pool or a pond better then that's when I'm gonna start getting concerned. Ladies and gentlemen, Lake Pitner. You know my wife always said she wanted lakefront property and so last night I decided to uh you know just treat my wife right and give her what she wants. I'm also really concerned about the high winds and losing some of these magnificent trees that are back there. But at the same time I think they're going to protect our house proper from uh winds. I don't know. What the hell do I know Mike? Greetings everyone. It is 11 o'clock on October 9th, the day that uh the Milton Massacre is supposed to hit. And as you can see in the back which is six feet uh beneath that fence line, that lower fence line right there, the wood. If you, it drops six feet back to that back gate and then in the back that's where all of the raccoons live and deer feed and the bees are. And you can see it's already starting to get a little water collected there because it's just been saturated. So when that fills up and looks like a lake if it breaches this uh we're screwed. I'm just saying uh because it won't take long then for it to come in here under there and uh I'll have different problems on my hands. But we hope it doesn't get there. But as I provide updates uh it's kind of nice to have a before. Uh this food forest uh still looks pretty good but man I gave everything a huge haircut. Pruned everything. I, I mean, God bless these banana trees. They have been through it all through the last hurricane. I wonder what they're going to look like after this one if they're going to be there at all. But uh yeah that just gives you a little perspective. This is the proverbial calm before the storm. Okay it's Wednesday 3 p.m. Uh we just got a tornado warning. So there's one apparently somewhere in the hood and uh the wind is really picking up. And you can just feel the difference. It just feels different out here. So yeah it's starting to get fun sports fans. Man this video camera doesn't give it justice. Um it is coming down so hard. You know my screen filters out a bunch but you can just hear it. Oh man. The food forest remarkably didn't sustain a lot of damage. I feel bad for my huge banana plants. And but I feel worse for my bees. I mean I can't even go out there because of fear of alligators, water moccasins, and bees. Fire pit. Wow. Oh god. Unbelievable. Okay it is the morning after and my poor majestic banana tree. Um I don't know if there's you know salvaging that. I don't know. Oh my other one too. Wow. But look at this. The rest of the food forest. I gotta repair the fence. I wanted to take that internal fence down anyway so thank you Milton. Um but giving the food forest a haircut that broke my heart um saved it. Isn't that amazing? It saved it. Uh but here's where my heart breaks. Remember I said that I was concerned about this back here? We now have Lake Pitner and I am so sad for my bees. Look at the bees. They're over there just hanging on for dear life on the island and I don't know what to do because earlier when I looked out um I swore I saw an alligator back there and there are water moccasins and you just don't mess with it so I need to let that recede and because obviously you have to be bee suited up to go back there and try to if there's any salvaging that um which I'll try. I will sure try but uh it's gonna have to be done very carefully. Uh but hey I'm a project guy so let's save the bees okay? I have a UNA that I just got called Saving Bees Association so this is now I have the poster child to say when they say at the bank well what do you do? I save bees. Well this is what my wife and I were doing at midnight last night. We were really concerned that the water was starting to come in here because it was saturating the land and it was creeping up and we're like oh s-h-i-t so we got some heavy boxes we made a little tarp it's white duct tape and and bags we made it impervious and then we just used these heavy boxes as our sandbags if you will and uh and it worked so I want to show you the aftermath um the carnage so you can see here my precious banana trees there's the mango tree he's a survivor up there good job buddy um but this was that magnificent magnificent banana tree and you can see back there I had to chop it off right there and I kept it I didn't chop it all the way down because its root system is so amazing it has created all these pups that are now huge that are going to get huger so I kept the papa there to keep doing his thing and then I chopped up the leaves and I'm just feeding the forest it'll turn into soil and like I said before I gave everything a haircut and thank god I did because otherwise this would all be uprooted so toddy you did good your instincts were right you're a good barber and you can see over here the food forest as well um haircut haircut haircut uh but it survived look at all these sweet potatoes hey when the you know what hits the fan uh it's time to harvest now one thing that did suck is our side gate got blown off it literally ripped it off and uh so I had to get out here this morning to be able to just jerry rig it back and then I was able to get that like that with these steel ties until I can get a fence person to come out here but the beautiful thing was I was able to get it to latch so now that's the food forest what about the back of the property where my bees are where my raccoons are where my deer roam let's go take a look at there shall we yes we shall and oh my goodness ladies and gentlemen lake pittner you know my wife always said she wanted lakefront property and so last night I decided to uh you know just treat my wife right and give her what she wants but uh you can look over here my poor bees my poor bees they are over there just wondering what the hell is going on oh my goodness you made it oh hi rocky hi where are your babies go get your babies honey I missed you too oh I love you that is my rocky who I got a tattoo of on my left shoulder go get your babies I'm gonna come back rocky anyway to summarize everything guys it sucks this is gonna be a project but all is good cheers I'm gonna go take care of rock you know what lake pittner is subsiding and I just can't do it I cannot look at that carnage anymore without doing something about it so I'm going to bee suit up I'm going to reassemble those and just see after doing so if they may rally I don't know if they will or not but I have to give it a try okay guys my new unincorporated non-profit association is called saving bees and so I came back to lake pittner and I did just that look at that look at that I did it now if the queen's still alive that colony is going to thrive and prosper as it should if the queen didn't survive then I'll find a new queen we'll requeen it but look at that that too is called perseverance with a little helping hand from a una operator called saving bees association because you always want to have a little bit of virtue signal if you're going to customize a una but in my case that virtue signal manifested into bees being saved look at them they're happy they're finding their way back home now we just need this to dry out so that the raccoons and deer can come back out and play the other thing I did just to let you guys know is instead of throwing this banana top out I went and dug a hole and put it in there next to the fence so that it's kind of reinforced and would you look it's like it's already starting to come to life I mean that's perked up we'll see what happens guys I'll keep you posted but wouldn't it be amazing if we started a whole new banana forest back here just because of the hurricane that's turning bananas into banana aid or something like that right isn't this interesting to see the bees are all coming to the sun side to usually you would call that bearding but they're coming there I think to get dried off I want to see if they're coming in the back oh now that makes me happy because that's where they get in and out of the hive back there you see where they're all just piled on that means they're trying to get in and out so bees are going to do what bees do and they're pretty freaking smart so if the queen is alive I think this will prosper if not we'll requeen it okay it's the morning after the morning after and you want to know the biggest middle finger to Hilton is my massive banana tree that I had to cut down I had two massive banana trees and I had to come down and look out of the ashes these are the next branches look at that that is the that is the banana's middle finger to nature to nature's wrath it's like yeah yeah well watch this Milton it got a beating but guess what you want to know the definition of perseverance people look at that look at that how beautiful is that my little orange said Milton you want some of me damn it just another word about perseverance look at this mango it got decimated just decimated but in just one day perseverance all right this is the post-mortem a little bit different from when we began I think you would say uh Lake Pitner has resided and this morning I was able to get out there and reassemble the bees so as I've said if the queen is still in there and living then I think that will bounce back and uh the food forest well you know the vultures have taken over hey vulture why don't you leave there's nobody dead here come on oh well you know what their nature too but anyway all in all uh I think we did dodge quite the bullet cheers good morning everyone it is August 27th 2024 and we are looking at the byproduct of an install which happened the final install date was 9 21 24 so we what you're looking at is just nature's way to show you how abundant it can be in just literally 11 and a half short months just over 11 months actually but just take a look at all of nature's blessings and I've strategically just let nature nature you know I have pruned some of the trees to be able to lift them up because my vision for my food forest is to have a canopy a wonderfully beautiful large canopy that goes over everything now there are certain issues associated with that like last night we had a not a hurricane but really strong winds came through and this tree which is admittedly very top heavy the soil down below got wet and this fell over and so what do you do you just stake it and you figure shit out that's what I love about this is you work with your food forest not against it now I don't know everything about food forestry which is why I'm letting God do the work and I'm here for the ride to come out and just look at it in all of its awe look at my herb garden all of these are herbs I mean like you want some basil I got some basil for you you want some mint I got some mint for you now most people would harvest those and trim them back and we don't do a lot of cooking with herbs but that's okay because why because I'm letting God demonstrate what he can do when we don't intervene and we just kind of shepherd you know that we're on the same side of the table to where we just support where we can where it seems to make sense but just look at that everybody this was grass just almost a year ago it was nothing but grass and now look at it I mean we have oranges we have gardenias we have avocados peaches we have blueberries red berries mulberries there are so many aspects of this look at all the pollinators here my bees back there you see my little 50,000 bee friends yeah 50,000 bees are in there just digging life and then back there that's where my raccoons play and the deers come to eat and I just I wanted to do this in harmony in harmony with nature and look at this little uh uh god what do they even call this right here um we had such bad water problems here so what the smart people at food forest abundance and cam and his team did install the french drain basically took the water from the roof put it in the french drain and it flows out to the front but they dug this trench which it's kind of cool because now nature has has over the top of these rocks has filled in but what happens when it rains it drains from here goes into the trench and then it's literally carried out through the trench through the woods through the back trellis and then it goes down six feet and it dumps right out there to feed the back whatever you call it property food forest but anyway such a beautiful day and I just want everybody to this is basically one giant infomercial for god you know what I mean not that he needs my help but oh my gosh like these oh this tastes so good I eat it right off the tree and then these little guys oh my goodness these strawberry trees I'm telling you you have not if you've never eaten one of these when they're red you've not experienced god's greatest blessing to flavor I mean amazing strawberry trees I love this so much I can't wait for it to get bigger so I had cam deliver one more which will grow huge and two more over there right there and you notice how it's going to come over the fence so that yours truly can eat on it but anyway that's it let me know what you guys think and if I might just give a blessing thank you god thank you nature okay everybody that's it Todd Pittner from DTV I'm out