Two Tornadoes Confirmed

The National Weather Service has confirmed that we did indeed have two tornadoes pass through Wednesday afternoon.

If you look at the map, the top tornado is where the barn and Tim and Loni's home are located. (Our home is a mile east.) Curt and Vanessa live out near Shadeland, and Lisa lives just north Dayton. There was rotation in her area but not a touch down, thank goodness!

I went out to the barn yesterday to check for damage and what I saw was chilling. The tornado barely missed Tim and Loni's home. The path of the tornado was very clear in the trees that were down on either side of the road that runs past their home. And that path was at an angle that missed their home by about 100 feet or less.  

The house may have been missed, but the trees on their property were not. They lost three big, beautiful trees like this one.

My friend Brooke had several trees fall on her home.

This is what's left of the roof over her porch.

Yesterday a tree service came out and cleared the trees off her home. I am surprised and grateful that her home did not sustain more damage from those trees that landed on it.

When it comes to rating the strength of the two tornados, they were labeled EFOs, the weakest tornados of them all. And yet the damage was fierce. Imagine what damage a stronger tornado could have wreaked! Brooke, Tim, Loni, and many others were very, very lucky these were weak tornados.

Changing topics, it's busy around here! Breyer has released a lot of information that I have not yet posted. Auction horses, the Vintage Club Gambler's Choice models, and more. 

I just sent off a big order of pony pouches, am deep in Feast preparation, and am working on details for Happy Trails V as well as finishing up research for a blog series of BreyerFests I've attended.

Lots to do and to write about!

Pepper has an appointment this morning to receive her monthly Percorten shot (it helps her manage her Addison's Disease) and then I plan to come home and WRITE.

There may or may not be another blog post later today - we will see.

Stay 'tooned!

 

Home!

 We are home. After another 30 hour train ride coupled with a four hour car drive, we arrived back in West Lafayette Friday evening. We are exhausted and moving REALLY slowly, but we made it back safely.

Hawkeye Sarah drove an hour and a half to one of our train stops just so she could wave at us for a few minutes. (Only passengers boarding or getting off could get off the train at that stop.) We loved seeing her and waving at her as we sat on the tracks and really appreciated her undertaking that three hour drive just for less than five minutes with us. 

Then we were off again and heading home!

On Saturday Barn Buddy Kelsey and I met for lunch so I could pick up my BreyerFest models. I didn't have time to open any of them and am looking forward to looking at them later today.

I took a very quick nap after lunch and then Craig and I hopped back into the car and headed to western Indiana. Teacher Daughter Lisa's friend, Frank, was in town and so we met them at The Beef House for dinner Saturday night.

The Beef House, Covington, Indiana

As we drove, we began receiving tornado warnings from back home in West Lafayette. An especially scary alert pinpointed the rotation right over our neighborhood! Beach Son Kyle (who had been unable to go with us) was in our home along with Pepper and we were very concerned about their welfare. (They sheltered in place for about twenty minutes and were fine.)

Just as we were moving, so were the storms and so the tornado warnings kept coming as the storms came along behind us. And right after a new warning went out for the area we were driving through, we spotted these menacing clouds next to us.

Fortunately no funnel touched down on or near us although we did have heavy, heavy rains. (3-4" across the town.)

Craig and I drove home and found that our home had not sustained any damage, Kyle and Pepper were fine, and that despite having had a tremendous amount of rain fall, nothing had flooded. We were very grateful.

What a welcome home from our trip to Utah!

As to what happened to the blog in my absence? Well, I continued to have difficulty accessing it as we traveled. I thought I had fixed those issues, but they returned the next day and I never was able to get through to the draft pages again. I am home now and back on my desktop where I usually work, so there should be regular, daily posts from now on.

Stay 'tooned!

Tornadoes in Kansas!

Craig and I traveled west to Denver for JC's high school graduation at the end of May. This year the plains states have had the highest number of tornadoes in recent years, and more storms were forecast the day we were to drive through Kansas.

Well, it was our lucky day (depending on your point of view.) As we crested a hill in Junction City, I spied a tornado coming at us over the hill.

 We pulled off at the next exit and waited the storm out in a restaurant. The sirens were blaring and we had hail and rain, but the storm passed on and we hit the road again.

Unfortunately, more storms were approaching us.

 We kept an eye on these clouds for a while, unsure if they were anything dangerous or not.

Suddenly, a tornado dropped down into the fields to the right of us.

 It was moving away from us, so we actually pulled over the watch it.

As it intensified, another one began forming alongside of the first one. It thickened very suddenly and became wedge shaped

And then together they both began to lift and dissipate.

While seeing so many tornadoes in such a short span of time was thrilling, we decided that, since the storms were still coming, it would be wise to stop for the night and not chance running into any more, so we pulled over in Salinas and got a motel room.

What a way to start our trip!