Wednesday: picking up debris

Storms, tornadoes, high winds, rain -- they were to come this way again at night, but they didn't. I kept checking my phone for weather alerts -- nothing. Are we done with violent weather?

We are not.

I get up at five for the chickens. They're quiet. Why? Usually Oreo crows for a good half hour before I get to them. I look out the kitchen window: dark still, even though it's the sunrise hour.





I walk to the coop tentatively. Look to the left, to the right... no, no fallen trees. Everything seems... normal.

And very still. Tense. Why?

I let the chickens out. Or, I open the coop door and unlike any other time since the day they came to live with us, they do not rush out. They stay inside as if transfixed.

Eventually one comes out, then the next and now they're out, even if they're tredding ever so cautiously... As if they knew that some meteorological event was again heading our way.

I go back to the farmhouse and within the hour the rain comes down. Hard. And the winds pick up. And soon my phone jumps and dances and warns us that there is yet again a tornado in the area.

Honestly, I would not have been surprised to see all the trees collapse on top of the sheep shed, or each other, or both -- the winds were that strong. But the tornado itself did not touch down here (it did to the east of us) and so our damage was less than yesterday's. Still, it was another day of picking up limbs and cutting back sagging branches.

We did have a fairly normal breakfast...





And when it rained, I caught up with cleaning the sheep shed and tending to such essentials as giving Ed a haircut.

But mostly, we worked outside again.

I wish I could give you more photos, but the work is such that a camera is an encumbrance and so I mostly park it inside. Too, the garden has slowed down a lot in its progression toward summer. The blooms are on the cusp, but they are not there yet. They need sunshine! The rain has given them a good vigorous push, but the flowering is definitely delayed this year. I did take one photo -- it's of the slowly emerging Wdding Phlox Miss Lingard -- the white spikes to the front.





They anchor the garden right now and that's a good thing.

I also have a photo of the venerable willow that's giving us so much trouble right now. You cannot really tell how massive the torn limb is -- it's to the right of the main trunk -- but I wanted to post this as a testament on how efficient Ed and I can be in cleaning storm debris. That's a darn clean looking wedding site, isn't it?





Tomorrow, the first of the Minneapolis crowd arrives. As do the toilets, the tent, the cedar oil sprayers, the tree people (I'm hoping) and, of course, the soon to be married couple. Friday -- more arrivals. Lots of people. Tables. Rehearsals. Chairs, sound systems. All that, followed by dinners and parties, hosted by the groom's family. Saturday -- well now, that's the obvious one: the wedding and dinner here, followed by more eating and dancing downtown. Sunday -- brunch for the out of towners (which in this case is nearly everyone). And there you have it: four days of festivites.

I'll be here, on Ocean, but I have to think with fewer words, though not fewer photos! And maybe that's a good thing?