"Count Your Blessings" Part One

"Count your blessings,

 name them one by one; 

Count your blessings, 

See what God has done"

When frustration rears its ugly head causing David and I to quickly lose our patience, we both try to stop and think of the many blessings that we've experienced during this trying time in our lives. We have them listed in our iPhones for those times when we just can't get our minds to focus.  Because sometimes, the chaos that still exists in one portion of our property makes us angry and short tempered.

Blessing One:  We were in our home when that tornado passed right by our house.  There were photos falling off of walls, destruction taking place all around us, but we survived.  Not only did we survive the tornado, but our home escaped severe damage needing only minor repairs.  

Blessing Two:  All three of our farm cats happened to be inside that night.  They come in for dinner but usually one or two or even all three escape back outside as soon as they are finished.  That night they were safely inside the house instead of in the barn that collapsed, or the metal shed that had timbers from the barn go through its roof, support beams snapped in half, and hail coming through the roof or the wooden shed that had a corner of the barn and part of a tree come down on it.

Blessing Three:  This one would turn out to be a short lived blessing; our three chickens survived the storm despite having the barn come down on their coop.  Three weeks after the storm, a stray dog killed two of them - our precious Little Roo and Hecky Pecky.  

(That is what happens when irresponsible pet owners drop off their pets just because it is "country" and they think the animal will have a hope of survival.  IF they survive the road traffic, they'll end up shot after they kill our chickens! - Put them in a shelter!)  

Huffy Puffy, our one remaining hen now sleeps inside our mud room in a puppy crate until "after we rebuild" and she has a safe place to live.  During the day, she hangs with the cats....

The coop was between the metal shed and the wooden shed.  It is under all of that debri.  This was taken on May 5th before we began to clear away the trees that covered the whole area between the barn and our patio, house and Gazebo. When we took this photo, our chickens had just come out from under it all.

Blessing Four: Neither of our two vehicles were parked where they normally are; the pecan tree that came down with the barn covered not only the wooden shed and our back fence, but the parking area.  Both paid off vehicles would have been totaled and the insurance checks received would likely NOT have paid for even one new vehicle.  We would have gone from no car payments to TWO car payments.  

This was a HUGE blessing with all the expenses of the wedding and the cost of our rebuilding.  The RV, for which we are still paying, escaped any major damage as well.  

Blessing Five:  The Gazebo had just been roofed in February of this year.  The framing had just gone up to add the screening and half walls.  Despite what appear to have been 100 mph winds, only one corner of the roof was damaged and only one frame post was broken.  The Hot Tub cover blew around the interior of the Gazebo and took out that one post although it did move another interior support post a few inches. (David was watching this from the mud room window when the Holly tree came down on the pump house taking out our water...it was only then that he took shelter with us in the Harry Potter Cupboard under the stairs!) The 9 year old hot tub lid was on the list of things to be replaced over the course of this year; insurance now replaced that lid when the repairman found it was cracked from the impact while there fixing a leak that also resulted from the storm damage.  The hot tub was drained the night of the storm for a cleaning to prepare it for family who would be staying with us for the wedding.  The storm also took out the GFI and the sensor panel for the hot tub.

After all the insurance claims were handled, we realized that we had not carried enough coverage for ALL of our outbuildings...had the Gazebo been destroyed, we would not be building a new barn/garage! 

To be continued...."Count Your Blessings" part two tomorrow....