Weather Update....

Hi Everyone!  Well it was an eventful night last night.  We had three severe storms roll through.  The dogs and I spent some time in the basement.  It's not really a basement, it's the original root cellar to the house that has had a cement floor and walls put in (after the fact) but it is wonderful to have.  This house has seen countless storms and tornadoes and has stood the test of time (thank goodness).  And we made it safely through last night.  But it was a long night.  I'm so tired today that I haven't been able to motivate myself to do much of anything.  And so are the dogs.

Today, we've been under a wind advisory and it's almost as bad as the storms last night because it's been constant all day long.  I didn't have many limbs down last night, but they've come down today.  Mostly likely they were broken last night and just coming down today.  I've also lost some shingles off the house.  I am in need of a new roof I'm afraid. 

The town of Thurman, Iowa which is not that far from where I live, was hit last night.  It's a very small town (250 or so residents).  100% of the buildings in town sustained damage.  75% of the buildings were destroyed.  And luckily, no fatalities.  A few injuries including a semi driver that pulled off the interstate (which is not far away) and was injured when his semi overturned.  They were all very lucky.  But now the clean up begins.

And if the wind would just stop blowing!  I guess we are paying now for the decent winter we had.  But it could have been so much worse last night.  I can handle spending time in the cellar and listening to the wind blow and the lack of sleep if it comes with minimal damages and surviving.  I'll be back later with a project I completed last week.  I just wanted to update everyone.  Thanks for all your emails and comments of concern.  And as always, thanks for stopping by.

Severe weather and tornados...

Hi Everyone!   I'm coming to you from the basement!  I hope you are all safe and having a better Saturday than I am.  We have been under a tornado watch most of the day.  We've had several severe thunderstorms roll through here.  We had a tornado warning hit this afternoon and the dogs and I headed to the basement.  The dogs are lying together (which is unusual) on the comforter I put on the floor.

We had another tornado warning and a severe thunderstorm warning come out.  The sky looked green so we headed again to the basement.  We've been here for a little over a half hour so far.  It hasn't been fun.  I hate storms.  We'll be here for a bit longer I'm afraid. They are talking about 60-80 mph winds.  I hope things are better wherever you are.  Hopefully things will let up soon and I hope to have some new projects for you tomorrow.  Thanks for stopping by!

Storm damage....

Hi Everyone!  Well, it sure has been an interesting summer.  Last night we had two waves of storms come through the area.  We had 60+ mph wind and sideways rain.  In the first wave I lost the walnut tree and part of the fence row.  And one of the gravity gas tanks was blown over.  Thank goodness it was the one that was empty, otherwise we'd have had a real mess on our hands.

In the second wave I lost the really old, really big cotton tree in the pasture.  And the top part of the maple tree.  Luckily it did not damage the garage.  It did "kiss" the corner of the roof and only dented the the corner of the metal roof.

We have a lot of clean up to do but we were very lucky.  On my way to town I saw that my neighbor's garage was totally destroyed and the top of my other neighbor's chimney was knocked off along with countless tree limbs.  Crops have been destroyed.  In places the corn and soybeans are lying down.  In others the corn has been stripped of it's leaves or ears of corn.  With all the flooding we've had of the Missouri river around here, we certainly didn't need this.  But thank goodness it wasn't worse than this.  I lost some shingles off of my roof and the flat roof over the back porch and pantry is leaking a bit, but that's nothing compared to what it could have been.  It always amazes me following each storm that this house that was built in the 1880's and added onto in the 1960's and sits on top of a hill, manages to weather the storms and keep standing.  Thank goodness!  I'll keep counting my blessings!  Now the clean up begins.  I hope you have a great day today!  Thanks for stopping by.

*Update:  At 11:00 this morning, my dear brother arrived after a 6 1/2 hr drive from Illinois so he could help with the clean up and get my roof fixed.  I spoke with him at 7 AM and he didn't tell me he was already on the road.  We also discovered that a wind block in the corral was blown down and the light in the corral is leaning forward, more than usual.  When I got home for lunch, they had already moved a lot of the tree limbs by my garage.  So here's to big brothers that come to the rescue!!  Thanks David!

Interrupting the regularly scheduled post...

Hi Everyone!  I hope you are having a  nice Wednesday.  We've had a heat wave here the last couple of days which turned into high humidity and now it's pouring rain.  We've had hail and now thunderstorms.  And a good chance for some really severe weather.  I hate thunderstorms.  The lightening and thunder which is going on right now.  And I especially hate the wind and tornado's. 

There has been some work going on at the farm and thank goodness they finished this big terrace project before the rain came.  Too bad the weather didn't hold so the soybeans could be planted, but we did need some rain.  Just not the rest of it.  You see that really dark soil at the top of the picture, that's a new terrace which will be planted with grass seed and will look like the two rows of green in the middle of the picture.  I live on a hill and the farm ground sits where there are lots of hills that have been contoured and terraced and tiled so that the ground can be planted.  The terracing holds back the soil when it rains and is tiled to drain the water away.  And we needed some more terraces. 

Now the new terraces will need to be seeded.  Too bad the rain didn't hold off for that, so hopefully we won't have too much rain.  We also had a waterway worked on and the corner of the dam that had given away with the flooding that happened a couple of years.  I'll get back to sharing projects soon.  Thanks for stopping by.