OMG, an actual update...
For those of you who do not follow me on twitter, Friday night we had a little tornado touch down behind the house. It touched down about a half mile back in the woods of the neighbor to my west, cut across the south west corner of our farm and went through my neighbor to the south's woods until it blew itself out. This all happened at around 10pm.
Neither house got so much as a scratch and the really ironic part is that our electric never even went out; it just flickered twice. My two favorite maple trees in the yard are now fire wood. It even snapped one of my little buckeye trees in half. All of the animals are fine but we had quite a bit of roof damage to the out buildings: barn, tool shed and shop.
The weird part is that I had no idea it was even that bad. I heard it start to hail but didn't think too much of it because they were predicting it. I do recall hearing about 15 seconds worth of what can only be described as a freight train but it was so brief that I didn't take notice of it. My brother said that it was shaking his house but mine is more shelters, better built and I was in the front room so I noticed no such shaking. As I said, my electric never even went off so I was watching a movie right through it. It was only after I heard every amishman and his brother fire up their chainsaws that I knew it was bigger than I thought. I suppose I should have known something was up when Archie started acting weird; he's been through many storms and never acted like he did then.
Anyway, other than the fact that my yard looks like a battle field and there are bits of roof and gutters missing from various buildings, it could have been a lot worse. Although, I have to wonder if we're not a tornado magnet. This is the 5th time in the recorded history of my family that a tornado has come across this farm. The most recent prior incident was in 1985. I've not been in back yet to see what that looks like. I'll probably saddle up Sharlene and take a ride back later. Its going to take several days to put my yard back into order. Anyway, happy mothers day and all that...
Neither house got so much as a scratch and the really ironic part is that our electric never even went out; it just flickered twice. My two favorite maple trees in the yard are now fire wood. It even snapped one of my little buckeye trees in half. All of the animals are fine but we had quite a bit of roof damage to the out buildings: barn, tool shed and shop.
The weird part is that I had no idea it was even that bad. I heard it start to hail but didn't think too much of it because they were predicting it. I do recall hearing about 15 seconds worth of what can only be described as a freight train but it was so brief that I didn't take notice of it. My brother said that it was shaking his house but mine is more shelters, better built and I was in the front room so I noticed no such shaking. As I said, my electric never even went off so I was watching a movie right through it. It was only after I heard every amishman and his brother fire up their chainsaws that I knew it was bigger than I thought. I suppose I should have known something was up when Archie started acting weird; he's been through many storms and never acted like he did then.
Anyway, other than the fact that my yard looks like a battle field and there are bits of roof and gutters missing from various buildings, it could have been a lot worse. Although, I have to wonder if we're not a tornado magnet. This is the 5th time in the recorded history of my family that a tornado has come across this farm. The most recent prior incident was in 1985. I've not been in back yet to see what that looks like. I'll probably saddle up Sharlene and take a ride back later. Its going to take several days to put my yard back into order. Anyway, happy mothers day and all that...