Then Look What the Easter Bunny Brought April 13, 2020

A tornado! The night before we had been warned of potentially severe weather during the early morning hours.  I had been awakened by the storm  and was trying to get a tv update, but I dropped the remote.  I got on the floor to look for it when simultaneously at 3:23 a.m.  the power went out and my cell phone buzzed with a text message "Take shelter NOW". I  crab crawled to the hallway and braced myself against the walls.  Bob was on the bed with Roscoe waiting to "hear the roar of the train" that is supposed to precede a tornado, but that train just came on through.  We could feel the house shake as it passed.  After it was over, we tried to see outside, but it was too dark.  About an hour later we could hear chain saws, but it was still too dark to see why until the sun came up.

When I looked out, all I kept repeating, "Oh, my God." My brain couldn't comprehend what my eyes were seeing.

The big old cypress was uprooted and blocked the driveway to the front street.  Bob's ratrod was within feet of it, but not damaged at all.

The big old pecan tree was uprooted and blocked the driveway to the side road.

Bob had an electric saw, but that was no help since the power was out.  He took my dad's old hand saw and whittled some branches through this mess so that he could get out and buy a chainsaw. 

The storm passed within 35 feet of our front porch and felled 5 of the biggest trees in the yard.  Miraculously, our vehicles, camper, boat,  memory bench, bird bath, house,   Roscoe and our lives were spared.   

and these two little figurines ....

that were in the planter box under this fallen hickory tree.  The only 2 trees on the top "north 40" that didn't fall were the dead hickory here and a sapling willow that had died during the drought last fall while we were on a road trip.  In the almost 40 years in Florida, we never experienced as much destruction from the hurricanes.  And we were luckier than most...some areas were damaged a lot worse by the F2 force winds and one man lost his life.

It took Bob two days to cut through the cypress trunk.  At that rate, it would take him until Christmas to clear the yard, if even then! 

But help arrived Wednesday....Bobby and Valerie came by to lend a hand.  They wanted to come sooner, but it was too dangerous due to downed trees and  power lines and road closures.  Notice here how close the memory bench was to the pecan tree and how the trees across the road in the background were untouched.  It was as though the tornado stopped at the cross road.

And more help arrived later in the day, but the kind that had big equipment and would do the job for a price.  But, the price was more than fair, and the two part time college guys who had the tree service were extremely nice young men and did excellent work.

Within four hours, they had the trees, stumps, branches and twigs cleared.  Although they did a great job, the land looks so barren now compared to what it looked like a week ago.  But we keep reminding ourselves that we are blessed that it wasn't anything worse.  And we will begin to green it up again.