Progress

I am back home in Illinois after an eventful week at the farm. If you read the previous post, you know about the tornado that burst it's way through our quiet countryside Tuesday night. And if you are a long-time follower, you know about my post traumatic stress disorder from the accident. What does that have to do with the tornado? I am in high gear again. Say "boo" I jump. Loud noise...scared to death. When I was little, I had reoccurring dreams about tornadoes. I am not a huge fan of storms as an adult but have learned not to fear every little storm that comes around. I think I have to start over again. Every time I close my eyes at night, I feel the fear I felt Tuesday night. I hear the tornado. I remember running as fast as I could with the cat in my arms to the basement, not knowing how I made it there so fast without tripping down the stairs. The pressure against the barn as I sat in the basement shaking & dialing the cell phone. The worry of what happened to my neighbors. I know it will eventually fade as time goes by, but for now, ugh, I need to relax.
I talked to Lizzie & Eli & they are both still very shook up. Their clean up is progressing. The buggies are being repaired. As of yesterday, the porch roof is still off but plans are being made to fix it soon. Eli is working on plans for the new barn too. Nancy & Jim had a crew of helpers at their house on Wednesday cutting up trees. He brought me a load of pine needles & wood chips and put them around the blueberry bushes to help the soil acidity. Have I said it before?  I love our neighbors. Lizzie brought us a large amount of homemade butter yesterday right before we left & told me how sorry she was that they didn't check on me right after the storm. I told her that was silly. It was storming until 1 am. No one could go walking around anywhere then.

We were so lucky that my daughter & family were at the farm for Labor Day weekend. Tim helped Steve put up the new pieces of siding.

It was windy on Sunday when they did this. I was glad I wasn't up on the scaffolding with them. It now looks good as new.
Steve & I picked up branches & mowed before we left on Monday. We still have a couple downspouts to fix and a chimney cap to buy along with cutting up a tree that fell in the pasture but we are 100% grateful that that is all we have to do. Eli & Lizzie will be busy for quite some time with repairs around their property. We will do what we can to help them.
I will keep this post short. I am exhausted & need a good night's sleep. Next time I'll post pics of my granddaughter & about what we did besides put up siding while they visited.

Eli's horses pulling the tree from the pasture up the hill.

The path the the twister took. The farm at the top of the hill lost a garage & had a machine shed damaged. Next was Jim & Nancy's , then ours, then Eli's. A farm after Eli's lost a barn & had their orchard destroyed.

This is NOT the Kind of Excitement I Need

So I've been up at the farm for the week, getting things done on my huge "to do" list. If you recall, the last time I was here for a week ( a few weeks ago), we had a pretty intense storm with heavy rain & low, rotating clouds. So Tuesday after I finished painting the ceiling in the new space, I had some dinner and then checked the radar. I have been going to Accuweather.com to get video forecasts while I'm at the farm since we don't have TV. They update it fairly regularly. Anyway, it wasn't pretty. I huge line of storms showing red & orange on the radar heading our way. They said it could be strong winds. I saw two of the Amish neighbor boys walking back up the driveway from putting the cows in the pasture and told then to let their mom & dad know in case they needed to put anything away before the storm. I shut all the windows except the two in the "cabin room" where we live while the construction is going on. I heard a loud "wind" noise & the curtains started to blow in a little. I shut the windows, walked back to the couch & the wind hit. It was loud. I thought the building was going to come apart. I grabbed Mia (the cat) & the flashlight & ran down to the basement. I could hear a huge roaring noise that just didn't quit. I was so scared. I could hear a metal-type noise but couldn't figure out what it was. I called Steve as soon as I got Mia in her carrier. The phone was shaking in my hands, I was so freaked out. I'm sure he probably though "she is just scared cause she's there by herself and it is probably nothing." I told him I heard something outside before I ran to the basement like maybe the tree next to the house when down...I wasn't sure.  We talked a few minutes & he called me back 15 minutes or so later. It was still storming, lots of lightening. I sat downstairs for about 45 minutes I think until I decided to be brave & go upstairs & look around. I really didn't know what to expect. I looked at all the windows & none were blown in. Then I went up to the attic & the roof was still on. I was only brave because I was on the phone with Steve. So I didn't see anything that was damaged. I stayed up worrying about the neighbors & how they came through the storm until I finally got sleepy at 1am.
The next morning it was cloudy & I woke up before 7am. As I got out of bed, I looked out the closest window.The tree was still there.  Then I looked out the front window & noticed that the water trough for the horses & cows was gone. I ran over to the window facing Eli & Lizzie's. I knew something was very wrong. I could see their house (usually blocked by trees) but it looked different. The front porch roof was gone and it was too clear in their side yard. I quick got dressed & saw Eli walking down the driveway to Jim's house. I called Steve & told him what I was seeing as I looked around. I saw a piece of red metal in the pasture on the other side of our driveway & told him that it must have blown off our junk pile of stuff. He asked if I had gone outside yet & looked at the building so I walked out & it was a piece of the siding right below where he just put in the new windows.

No wonder I heard a  "metal" sound! I was one the other side of that wall.  There was also a piece of metal way up in a tree between Our house & the neighbor's.

I looked in the front of the barn (where the wind hit) but there was only a downspout damaged. There were a couple trees down in the pasture, the solar panels were okay, the rest of the barn was untouched. By that time Lizzie & a couple of the kids were walking down to see how I was. We all walked up to their house to look at the damage. I will tell you this now...no one was hurt.

Their buggies were crushed by the barn that collapsed.

The roof was torn off the barn and everything thrown around.

Porch roof is laying in the foreground.

They also ran for the basement & stayed there for some time. They were worried about me...I was worried about them.
Neighbor Dave came over then & said he would help whatever way he could. He didn't have any damage at his place. In a half hour or so (thanks to Dave), there were two burly guys at Eli's helping cut up fallen trees in the pasture.  He also took his big end loader up there to help move debris. Jim came there next & told us that most of the large trees in front of his house were down.

At Jim & Nancy's house. Lot's of trees down.

Jim told me of the damage at Mike's house up the road from him.

Garage roof collapsed & machine shed & silos damaged.

As I went into town later that day, I noticed another barn down in the path of the storm.

The neighbor behind us didn't have any damage but a few tree limbs down but she saw the funnel cloud as lightening lit up the sky. Jim's wife saw it too. 

I am so very thankful that no one was hurt and grateful for kind neighbors. They have all offered a place for me to stay if I am frightened.  I am also happy to know that I didn't "freeze" when it hit & reacted correctly by grabbing Mia & running to the basement. ( I have often wondered what I would do)

I found a tomato in the yard by the driveway from the garden as I went to pick up a branch. It looked perfect. I picked it up & it was bruised on the bottom. It had been picked up & dropped by the tornado, and close by, a straw bale was tossed into the driveway and metal was wrapped around a tree 20 feet in the air. Amazing. But...as I write this, I am getting freaked out all over again, so I must stop. I might write more about it some other time, but enough for now. This weekend when my daughter & family come here to visit I will be giving them an extra big hug as I will to everyone I love....and when Steve gets here tomorrow, I think I will feel safe again.