Some of you ordered digital quilting patterns from me a couple of weeks ago while we were out of power. I used back up measures to send them out to you as soon as I possibly could. This post is to show a few pictures of the mess and clean up process…. And to thank you for your patience!
We had two storms come through here only days apart. The first storm hit us pretty hard. No tornadoes were spotted, but the winds had reported gusts of up to 80 mph. Thankfully no one was hurt and we had no structural damage. However, a few trees got pretty badly torn up and our neighbor lost 3 trees in their front yard. One tree was a huge old pine. As it fell to the ground it caught the power lines, ripping them out of the neighbor’s house and damaging the lines to our house and the pole. It also covered the road in its massiveness.
It is an incredible amount of work to clean up that many trees. Our church sent over a few guys with chain saws and Michael came, too. By the end of the day our entire property was clean except for a huge pile in the front yard from the neighbor’s pine. It felt good when time finally allowed and the remains of the storm were completely burnt. What an enormous fire!
The second storm brought 4 tornadoes with it, but they touched down just a couple of miles to the north of us. We had more branches down, but not the major damage that others suffered. One man had his entire barn picked up off its foundation and moved across the street! The hay and equipment was still standing on the foundation. Now, how does a tornado accomplish such a thing?! But it did show me that “gusts up to 80 mph” are definitely a different story than a real, true “tornado”.
When looking at the following pictures, bear in mind that we forgot to take pictures until clean up was well under way. It was even worse…. 
Here you can see the size of the trunk on the pine. It is sad to loose such an old tree.
The guys at work. I'm not sure how we would have gotten this cleaned up without their help.
Dad and Tammy unloading branches onto the fire pile. Thankfully, the store Dad is building wasn't damaged. That is not a barn in the background - it is a store in progress!
The view of the road after it had been cleared almost to the point of passing. I wish I would have had a picture before it was cleared at all.
The pile that was started in our front yard. It looks like a jungle!
The power company cutting a branch out of the power lines. It was a big relief when they came out and repaired the lines. You don't realize how much you depend on electricity until it's gone.
I’m glad that’s over! Hopefully there will be no more tornadoes for a long, long time…………..
