Tornado!

No, we don't have any pictures of the storm itself, but we do have pictures of some of the damage. The picture above was taken some hours after the big event of the day while we were cleaning up.

Our yard just isn't going to be quite as shady as it used to be... Some of it, we actually wanted to come down and were just waiting for time to cut down those trees, but that one big hickory we really liked... Oh, well! The pictures don't really show how much our property was changed over the course of the afternoon. But we had three large trees come down very close to the house/driveway and several more large branches/trees down further out.

Jonathan & Mom both witnessed the storm come through - Jonathan from an upstairs window, Mom from the main level. We really had no warning that it was coming (it's been storming on and off for the last couple of days). N&J's little ones were spending the afternoon at Grandma's house, and Dad was stuck in traffic a few miles away without a cell phone watching with concern the dark clouds over towards home. Jeanine, Jessica, Joanna & Abbey were out running some errands, but happened to be on the phone with Mom when the storm hit... though she quickly got off to hurry the little ones into the basement. Jonathan, Joseph, and Josiah, on the other hand, stayed by the window to see what else would happen. By that time, though, the worst was passed.

A few miles away, Sara and her little ones had been warned by tornado sirens, and were in their basement listening to the tornado as it passed their house. Again, they sustained no damage aside from some branches down - but one neighbor has a tree on their house, they have some of another neighbor's debris in (and on) their home. Another neighbor had a camper in their yard (immediately next to J&S's) and it is no longer there - at all. In fact, they don't really know where it is, other than that the awning is in J&S's yard.

Amazingly, of all the trees and branches that came down on our property, none hit the 4 vehicles or 2 trailers in our driveway, nor the house, the garage, the decks, the pool, the shed, or even the BBQ grill... God is very gracious. Humorously, a couple of years ago a kite got stuck a branch of one of our trees. Today the entire tree came down - except the trunk up to that one branch. The kite still is stuck in the tree.

Clean-up time! I think we'll be having a nice big bonfire soon - albeit a smoky one with lots of wet wood and leaves...


We did get some nice firewood for Winter '08-'09, though!


We worked at clean-up until dark and got much of the accessible damage taken care of, but it was hot, sweaty work on a warm, humid evening... so a late evening swim was in order!

The skies are clear now, the stars shining, the breeze gentle and cooling... I think everyone will sleep well tonight!