TORNADOS AND TOMATOES

Wheeew, I know this post is long overdue, but man have I ever been busy. . A little violin music please and maybe some cheese with this wine! :) .... I was busy enough as it is, but on April 9th tornados came to Shreveport/Bossier and made my life a good bit more hectic... I knew from watching the weather that morning that we had a possibility of some severe thunderstorms, but in the evening it didn’t look that bad outside, so I dismissed it from my mind... Cheryl and I sat down to watch a movie we had on DVD and know the title wasn’t “Gone With The Wind”! ... Well the movie ended and I switched back to regular local tv and lo and behold the weatherman was on and showing a tornado warning for our area. .. The warning cone looked as if it were in familiar territory and after looking at it more closely, I realized our house was right in the center of the warning cone path!! :( ... We started to head to a bathroom in the center of our house, but I cannot stand the thought of being shutup in the bathroom and not knowing what is going on outside and around me.... I headed for the back door and looked out to see a lot of wind, and nickel sized hail (some nickels and some dimes), but no tornado... After a little while it calmed a bit and there was nothing but hard rain and plenty of it! ..
Thank you father for watching over us and keeping us safe.

After continuing to watch the weather we were warned twice more of tornados and one of those decided to visit Barksdale AFB... It seems the one in our area kind of skipped right over us and touched down again a little further down the road, but the one at Barksdale touched down in a couple of places on the base. ... Although the tornado downed a lot of trees, especially on the golf course, there was not a whole lot of major damage to facilities. ... Unfortunately it was our service contractors that have to take care of the tree removal and debris cleanup, so I have been real busy lately.

I did not have my camera with me when I was out and about, but I did get a couple of pictures taken by a friend three days after the tornado hit the base and cleanup was in progress:

From Tornado Damage

From Tornado Damage

Our house did not sustain any damage, other that a few limbs down in the yard. At least I will have a good supply of camp firewood for a while. :) .. ..

I was able to take time out from tornado recovery to visit with the grand kids and kids for Easter. I needed the break and the kids were great, Thank God for my family.

From 2009-04-11-1826-42

From 2009-04-11-1826-42

The littlest one hunted those eggs real hard and soon after he was out for the count!

From Drop Box

I have also been able to plant a few tomatoes after the Easter break. I planted some in five gallon buckets, along with some peppers. I also planted three plants in “Topsy Turvey “ planters. I don’t know if you have ever seen them on TV or not, but the plant grows out of the bottom of the container. I will let you know how that turns out. ;) ..

From 2009-04-11-1826-42

On top of all that I continued to get the house ready to sell. I painted one of our bedrooms, changed the light switches and receptacles to bright white ones. I still need to replace the out-dated light fixture and hang new closet doors (we removed them long ago). As slow as I am working it will take another year to have the house ready! At least I am working toward my dream :)

Well I need to get busy….. till next time……. God Bless us all.