As the day wore on I got really bored. I took most of yesterday's milk and made mozzarella cheese but I was still bored. I made a whole bunch of honey sweetened pumpkin leather, but I was still bored. I made a rather large pot of squash soup, but I was still bored. I whipped up a couple apple pies (one I was going to send home with my brother this morning.) *yawn*. I straightened the house. When I did chores I grabbed a mass of tomatoes intending to make some more salsa. Basically my boredom led me to the kitchen to cook. I made waaayyy more food than the three people who live here can eat and I was thinking today I would package it up, make some rounds and give food away to the aunties around the neighborhood (aunties is a word we call the respected elder women).
About five o'clock yesterday afternoon I was looking at the data and switching back and forth from the radar and BOOM storms started popping up in Minnesota. I had been expecting this, with the hot weather yesterday and a cold front moving through, it was bound it happen. But the more I looked at those storms the more I knew we were probably in for a rough night. I got the chores done early, moved the horses and the sheep into pastures where they could find shelter (highlander cows are fine in rough weather), put the chickens and pigs in early, and threw some tarps over the greenhouses JIC. By the time I got in the phone calls had started. Some friends wanted to come over to weather out the storms. No problem.
They start showing up with sleeping bags, the nightly necessities, and FOOD. They were laughing at how they had felt like cooking today and so they had all this extra food. I decided to set up the food in the finished part of my basement, again JIC, and did we have a spread! I had to bring in extra folding tables to hold it all. Pretty soon we had a family orientated storm party going on.
We could see the lightning approaching. Amanda my cousin came home. The air became very still. Ryan made it home, saying that to the west it was raining so hard he could hardly see the road. Tornado warnings went out for Grant county a ways to the south of us. I moved the laptop into the basement so I could watch the radar if things got dicey then stood by the west windows and watched the storm coming. The air was so still, it's hard to explain to those who have never felt that kind of power. It's like for this moment in time you can hear for a hundred miles and smell scents from a thousand. I felt the hair on the back of my neck go up.
"In the basement," I said to the only other person as stupid as I was to be upstairs, Ryan.
"You too," he laughed and grabbed my hand.
I really didn't want to go. I wanted to watch it when it hit. I got my wish. The big sugar maple suddenly bent over, practically in half. I thought for sure it would snap. A huge branch snapped off the walnut by the gate. I heard a squealing noise and knew something man made was being broken (It ended up being part of the roof of the wood shed). We ran to the basement and listened to the old house creak and groan as the wind hit it. By 7:15pm another friend was calling saying that power was out all over the neighborhood. Not surprising.
In the basement everyone was laughing and eating. The kids were playing games or talking. It was a happy place to be right at that moment. I filled up a plate for myself and Ryan and we joined into the conversations. A couple euchre decks came out and we started playing cards. A few other people showed up around midnight because the power wasn't back on and joined in. The kids fell asleep on some blow up mattresses scattered around the floor. For having such raging weather outside, we were all fat and happy inside.
Thank goodness we did not have a tornado, though the straight line winds that hit us tore down a barn on the other side of town. There will be a great deal of clean up today and the power has yet to be restored to the area, but for the most part we got by with a few bumps and bruises to the farm. I went around to the family and the neighbors (and many stopped by here too) and there's damage, but nothing so much that we can't handle it.
This morning I was making a mozzarella and tomato salad and some sandwiches for people to munch on and I was thinking how lucky it was I was so bored yesterday to make all this food. I started thinking about how my friends had said they had been drawn to the kitchen yesterday too. We all started to do the one thing that made the storm easier to handle, we made comfort food. But this was before we even knew there were going to be storms. Then it hit me...
Intuition doesn't have to work like a light bulb going off over your head. Magic isn't all fancy potions and alters. Sometimes by just doing what it feels right to do is magical all in itself. Without even thinking about it or wondering why (heck, I thought I was just bored), we made certain that the night did not have to be as bad as it could have been. It was a subtle draw that didn't require a whole lot of thinking behind it. Too many of us look for miracles of great magnitude, but often they comes as a dish to pass around or a smile or a hug. Magic happens, we just have to be willing to feel it.
So here are a few pictures of the storm damage. We got by lucky. I'll be cleaning up for the day and we'll be spending a bit of time with the aunties making sure their yards and farms are cleaned up too. But for this moment of peace while I wait for my guests to get up, I thought I would tell you how our night went. LOL
Needless to say I'll have to move some branches off the drive before I can get out
I'll be replacing shingles on one of the chicken coups...
...as well as tin on the wood shed roof
Not my new handicap ramp!
It's not broken, but I'll need to get the chainsaw out to move that branch.
Oh well, more firewood. LOL
A lot more down in the woods and I have a few apple trees that will have to come down and new ones be replanted, but still not too bad. Hopefully the power in the neighborhood will come back on soon.
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