Kitchen nightmare on Halloween

There was no tornado warning. One minute we were outside on a fine summer day building the foundation for a new greenhouse, the next it was black as night. When Tucker started galloping around his corral, we checked the radar and all it said was 4" hail. We had about ten minutes to get all the animals in their sheds, but Tucker doesn't have a barn yet. That size hail can kill. Where we live the ground is rock so cellars and basements are uncommon. Fortunately the house is solid masonry and survived a direct hit. It was gone in about ten minutes. Our three vehicles and six roofs were all badly damaged and are in various states of repair.

The worst loss, though, were the ancient trees around our house, two of which landed on our roof, and the Texas champion Italian Stone Pine that shaded our backyard landed on the greenhouse where I had put three of the dogs. They were OK, but the tree was blocking the door. When the electricity came back on the pole behind the greenhouse caught on fire and I fractured my thumb frantically breaking a hole through the wall to get them out of there, and spend the rest of the summer in a cast. As for my landscaping, what the tornado didn't destroy, the electric and tree companies did with their heavy equipment. Fortunately we and all our animals survived.

Oh, that last pict just breaks my heart.
But you are right - the important things were fine.
And you are moving forward to a new 'normal'.

@flowerweaver, I love that Tucker in the living room photo. It should be posted on POW and Caption Contest pages. I'll bet Tucker loved being inside with you. He certainly seems calm and relaxed there.

Wow! Thank goodness everything important survived.

WOW! Is all I can say.......

living in arklahoma i have dodged tornados all my life. so sorry for all the damage but so glad that everything was ok. love the picture of tucker

What makes me sad is the loss of those big trees. We experienced the same thing in hurricane Rita and hurricane Ike. We have lost 3 huge oaks next to the drive way in the neighbors yard that used to shade the house, plus 3 huge oaks in the front yard and a huge oak in the back yard. damage to the house was repaired, but you just can't replant an ancient oak or splint and bandage twisted off large branches. When they fall over, it's basically firewood time.

I would have liked to "like" the tornado post ..

. but, can't bring myself to do that.

So, I went back and liked Tucker. The thumb on which hand did you fracture, @flowerweaver ?

Steve

@baymule yes, the tree loss was devastating, I know you understand having gone through similar. The odd thing is I have an outdoor shower made from recycled barn wood the same distance away as the big tree and it was still standing. I could push it over with one hand. I now have a lifetime supply of mulch, but also I managed to save the 36" dia. trunk of the champion pine and will have it slabbed and hopefully will get some flooring or furniture out of it to remember the tree by.

@digitS' I understand. I fractured the thumb on my right hand. I thought it was just sprained and didn't go to the doctor for a month. It was only when I was unloading 50# bags of feed from the back of the truck that I knew something wasn't right. Apparently it had started to heal and then I injured it again. It took a long time for the soft tissue to heal in the joint.

We lost hundreds of trees during hurricane Bob 25 or so years ago. There was a bit of damage to the house, a stone wall went down, swing set and a tree on a shed. All was reparable. We lost 4 giant maples on our front yard. Our yard went from a beautiful canopy of trees to pretty wide open. We planted new trees that were large twigs at the time and now they are good sized trees. I was visiting my parents with my young children and my husband had stayed home. We were on the phone together when the store was at it's worst and I could hear trees cracking. Tom went out to secure a shed door. When he returned to the phone he looked out and a tree landed on the shed where he had just been. My property was hit the hardest of any tree wise but I was glad my husband was unharmed. Neighboors had to come with chainsaws to cut him of the driveway. It took us years to reclaim our 13 acres of woods. But many homes on the shore were washed away so we were the lucky ones. Wow. I and practically forgotten all of that.