Through the Storm

One of the ways I stayed sane during the two years of storm recovery was to photo journal it all.  Just after the barn was raised, I posted this to share with my friends and family through FB/youtube.  

Since then, a few more things changed outside...namely Huffy Got Anther Coop to share with her new friend Gracie....

David modeled it after the old barn you saw in the video above; the "Dutch" style door allows the chickens to come and go as they please during the day while keeping four Labs from going in and stealing their food and water supplies..  These photos show it in the building stage; it since has been sealed with trim pieces and we've begun to add half walls (recycling old four foot fence panels) to the pen area for wind and predator protection.  

I love where the new coop stands; just outside of the Gazebo where we can hear the clucking of the hens and where they feel part of the goings on....!  After all,what with sleeping in the house at night for a full year and blending in the dog pack during the day while she was the lone hen on the place, Huffy is more of a pet than anything else by this point.

Come spring, we'll bring in new hens to up our egg production.  Huffy Puffy is an old girl now and with Gracie nearing 5 we'll be lucky to get enough eggs for one of the three folks living here.  Now that we are back to some semblance of a normal life, it is time to rebuild the flock.  

Planting a Magnolia Tree….

One of David's co-workers overheard him talking to another about how time consuming the recovery process has been; he then said "the tornado is over, get over it".  You know that old saying "ignorance is bliss"?  That person had not been down here to see the damage; he had never been through a tornado before…his ignorance allowed him to say that to David and allowed him to walk away afterwards without realizing that David stood there biting his tongue. 

We are heading rapidly towards the one year anniversary of the storm that turned our little world upside down; although the "to do" list is a lot smaller than it used to be it is still somewhat overwhelming to us.  

I've written about how the exhilaration of using the Bobcat the first time wasn't experienced the second time we rented it.  That kind of let down is felt quite often around here.  You see, we will spend a three day weekend really pushing through and getting an almost unbelievable amount of work done only to sit down that night or the next morning looking it all over and realize how much more there is to do. 

The driveway is in - three truckloads of road grade dirt have been delivered and spread BUT, we have yet to build the front gate, the bulkhead, complete breaking up the slab, AND still have gravel rock to purchase and spread.  

The shed is moved to its temporarily permanent place (I know…I know…) BUT, we still have to replace that with a new building because it is barely holding together - a tarp is covering the gaping hole in it's roof for goodness sake. 

We won't be finished with all of it by May 4th.  There just isn't time to get it all done.  But at least we now can see the finished product taking real shape.  

And, there is now a Magnolia tree standing where there used to be a Holly tree.  Progress.

Smoother sailing ahead….

After 11 months of staring at chaos, I can finally look outside and believe that this journey through the aftermath of the tornado is nearly complete.  Over the past three days, we've moved the shed a few feet forward and a few feet over; this placement is more "pleasing to the eye" than the when it was placed along the back fence line. We moved some fern to soften the hard lines of the pump house and shed. The shed will only be used until we begin to build the new structure next spring so I'm just using planters along its edges instead of any kind of permanent transplanting.  The planters are filled with newly purchased flowers that will soon brighten up the view.  Soon the Gazebo will have hanging plants placed….

The shed's new placement allows for the kayaks and boat to be hidden from the view of the back patio, gazebo and not be what one is staring at driving up the new driveway.  The Kayaks will be hung from the back of the shed or perhaps from 6 ft fence sections that will be brought in later; the boat will actually be where the trailer is now. Three of the four sides of the fencing is now moved/repaired; this back line of fencing is the last to be replaced.  We've been using the sections of the kennel temporarily as we can take it down to bring in heavy equipment. (That kennel has come in really handy as fencing as we completed work on each section of the back yard.)

We pulled up edging from the rock path that will be covered with sod and while we didn't yet get it placed to mark the edge of the new parking area, it is lying roughly where it will be placed allowing us to visualize the final result.  

We'll dig up the grass from there and put it in the old pathway (not shown) and then bring in gravel rock.  Extra pieces will line the boxwood gardens that line the patio (making those gardens much easier to maintain in the future).

We placed six fence post solar lights up the north boundary fence to light up the new gate and driveway.

And we liked the look of the solar lighting so much that we have decided to place them on top of every other post along the front as well to point the way to the new driveway. (The sign is placed on the ground to stop folks from driving through the wire fencing at night now that it is lit up.  The gate will be built this weekend.)

More solar lighting will come in along the bulkhead when it is built and along the top edge of the culvert when we've completed breaking up the old slab and placing the pieces to help mark the edge of the culvert.  The wood for the bulkhead is stacked ready to begin that build.

We can now walk out the back door and actually visualize the final result; no more staring at a design on a piece of paper and hoping that it will look good.  We've had to do a lot of practicing patience and adjusting during this long road out of chaos, but finally, we are reaching the finish line (for this year anyway.)

On our way to the year anniversary of the tornado, our project to "do list" finally fits on one page; from pages of "to do" items that took up the front of the fridge to just one sheet of paper that sits on my desk…

Build Gate

Build Bulkhead

Hang Kayaks on back of shed

Break up slab

Bring in gravel rock for parking area

Complete transplanting, fencing and lighting

Go fishing and kayaking again!
Go On Cruise!

Can't wait to cross off that last one!  Half Moon Cay, here we come!

Moving Dirt…again

Thursday night, three trucks full of road base dirt arrived for the driveway so we headed to town to rent the Bobcat for spreading it all out and to finish getting dirt and rock moved from our old parking areas to the new.   Three hours of working Thursday night (thanks to Daylight Savings Time!) and 8 hours on friday only to find that we could actually have used another load.   

Despite the upbeat nature of the video (making videos of the past 11 months have been therapeutic for me), the end of the day was actually a little bit of a downer.  After returning the Bobcat, we headed out to the back patio before dinner; I don't think either of us was prepared for the let down we would feel.  After our last "Bobcat Adventure", we were so exhilarated by the amount of work we'd accomplished I think we were partially blinded to the remaining chaos of our back yard.  I think both of us felt that that chaos would be less noticeable after the driveway had had it's base put down and we began to move the boats, RV and vehicles into their new parking areas.  

More than though; we've learned through the past 11 months to live without the old barn that was so much a part of our home; we no longer feel its loss so quite so badly each time we walk out the back door.  But, sitting down last night and looking in that direction once again brought it home how much the tornado changed our view and our landscaping.  Along with the beautiful old barn there were two ancient pecans; a fence lined with Confederate Jasmine, citrus trees and a large rose bush not to mention yards of green grass; all of these have been destroyed or moved in the rebuilding.  What we see is a path of brown strewn with the debris of constant construction.  

It is temporary.  We know that in our minds but every now and then, when exhaustion from looking at chaos and the hard work of getting it all done hits us hard, we are overwhelmed with sadness at what once was and will never be again.

After dinner, we headed back outside to walk around and discuss our next steps….let's just say for now that the old shed will be moving…again.  This time though just a shift of a couple of feet will do the trick….

The Barn: Saying Goodbye

Yesterday, our Farmer's son pulled down the remains of the old barn.  He'd salvaged as much as he could of what had been stored inside it for nearly 100 years.  It's been a slow process for him as he dealt with his job, putting both of his parents into nursing homes in the last three months along with the rains and the heat and bugs of a Florida summer.

If David was home while work on the barn was being done, he would spend a lot of time just listening to Douglas as he talked about his memories of that old barn.  How Mr. B showed him how to garden and to work on farm equipment; how he was dared by Mr. B's daughter to ride his bike out the hay loft and onto the ground below, how his Dad and his brother and a couple of others used tractors to pull it back up after Hurricane Dora in the 1960's.  

There are things we can't get to working on ourselves until that old barn is completely hauled off.  We can't have our concrete slab hauled off nor can we get the old metal shed pulled out.  There is a pecan tree on our property that is now leaning so far over with compromised roots that we have a tree guy coming on September 17th to take it down...but David empathized with Douglas and practiced patience as he waited and listened to the recounting of memories as he worked through his emotions.  We all went through that Tornado and its aftermath, but Douglas's journey is different than ours.  He has a lifetime of memories tied up with that old barn and the house he grew up in across the street from us; a house that no longer has both his parents there with him.   He is hauling away bits of his childhood.

It's that time again...

Harvesting.  

I always have mixed emotions when the farmers harvest the fields around us.  In the spring, I look forward to it while at the same time I know that the house will be filthy inside and out for a few weeks between the harvest and the re-planting. I know that when they re-plant, I'll soon have a six foot high privacy fence and I know that soon Hunter will be home for the summer.

Last spring, the farmers planted corn instead of the usual cover crop.  Some of it is feed corn and some of it we believe is for ethanol.  These farmers are all struggling to keep their farms going in this economy; a lot of them had switched to sod farming prior to the recession but with the housing market going south, they soon had to change direction.  Today, they have been harvesting that corn.

I know that the harvesting means that I lose my natural privacy fence and will once again have to deal with the dirt for awhile and that soon, Hunter will be returning to school.  But, I also know that it means that before too long, those potatoes will be planted and a sea of white flowers will be our view; and that the holiday season is coming!

We don't just deal with the dirt when the fields are harvested; snakes and other critters race out from the danger of the tractors to the safety of our yard.  We will have to mow and weed whack more frequently for a few weeks to avoid those snakes deciding to take up residence in our hedges.

It's all a part of living out here.  And I wouldn't trade it for subdivision living for any amount of money!

This is the first time Angus is experiencing the noise of several tractors harvesting all around our house.  

He's been running around the fences keeping an eye on all of the activity.  Can't wait to see him in the fall when they send out the Crop Duster's!

Fall 2012 - Crop Duster

What I couldn't get on film was the plane coming down on the other side of the house.  He flew up from the other side of the barn, over our house, and down just the other side of our driveway....it's crazy!

Tidbit: Most of the tree cover you see in this is gone now.  Those are the trees that came down in the Tornado.  I should get some good video of it this year!

Photography...

My Christmas gift this year was a new camera!  Since moving to Mac, I'd been videoing and photographing non-stop.  What I'd wanted to be able to do when the children were small  - film, edit and then actually watch the results,  I was able to do.  I'd video and then race to the laptop with the SD card and get it all into iMovie and go to town editing and adding music and photographs.  Camping trips and cruises and family get togethers were all making their way onto our T.V.!

There was one issue though. My old camera didn't do HD videoing; in fact, it didn't video very well at all. Normal movement of subjects - even in Sport mode - left a "vapor" trail.  Moving the camera during filming had to be done very slowly or you received the same result.

So, David bought me a new camera!  In addition to HD filming, it takes really beautiful stills as well.  I'm still learning how to use all of its functions to their best capability.  Dallas was home last week and he sat and played with it and helped me to move forward in that regard....the best thing he showed me?  That there is a "continuous shutter" function.

Trying to get a good photograph of a Black Lab is difficult.  Without the correct lighting, whatever photo is taken shows a completely black spot where their eyes and other facial features should be.  Profile shots are not too difficult to get, but a full frontal shot?  Nearly impossible without a really good camera and the best lighting.  In the past, we'd hired a photographer to get photos of our Black boys so that we'd have some good shots of them.

With our new little Black boy, even with my new camera, getting good photos was not easy.  But yesterday, I sat outside on our drain field as Angus explored the yard and played with Callie.  Using the continuous shutter trick, I was able to get quite a few good shots of him....here's my favorite...

Using the continuous shutter trick, I just kept shooting.  Right before this shot, he'd been sitting quietly staring at Callie.  Suddenly, he began to run to attack her!  This would never have been caught if I'd been simply taking a regular photograph....!  And yes, this is the same sweet boy in the photograph above!  : ) 

The process of mourning...

From August 2009 until just recently, I rarely posted here.  The passing of my mother in law took the joy out of writing in this on-line journal.  There was a lot of (extended) family tension as her estate was settled over the course of a year and a half.  I wrote, as I've done since I was a child, but not here, not where others could read about the sad state of affairs.

In 2011, we began the year having gotten through the probate process and I thought I'd begin to write here again; but in March of that year, within three weeks of each other, we lost our two Black Labs, Murphy and Indie, and again, any joy I found in writing here was overshadowed by their loss.  I found that most of what I wrote was filled with the grief of their loss.  

Grieving is a process.  2012 was a slow year of emotional recovery.  

It was also the year I retired my ten year old Dell and switched to Mac.  Along with my new MacBook Pro, I got iMovie and iPhoto....and all that those programs would allow me to do.  I realized that I could finally get all the old family movies on unwatchable VHS tapes onto DVD's.  (The last of our VCR's had given up its life a few years ago.)

I went through all those VCR tapes and transferred them one by one onto my laptop and into iMovie; I scanned all the old photographs into iPhoto and my Genealogy software (Reunion). And I spent months editing those bits and pieces of footage into "movies".  Then I put them all onto DVD's and shared them with family.  

There was footage from my niece's 6th birthday party held in October 2004; a party where we all dressed as fantasy characters mostly from Disney Movies; there was limbo and apple bobbing and after the sun went down, family karaoke for hours!  What fun it was to relive that day and finally get the video not only to my niece but to all the family members that were there that wonderful day.

There was footage from a 1993 trip to Universal Studios with David's brother's family.  There was footage from a 2000 trip to Hawaii Nikki took with that same family.  There was footage of Dallas' year as Drum Major of his high school marching band; too many band and chorus concerts to count, soccer games for Hunter with Nikki as the referee and David as Coach of his team and footage of my performing days!  

There was a lot of footage of our Shanna, Murphy and Indie; that was the most difficult video to edit in the beginning, but as I worked on those old videos and put them into a "movie" I was able to let those beloved pets go and remember them with joy instead of sorrow.  The process allowed me to think about getting another puppy and to move toward the day when I was ready....

Meet our new baby....introducing our 13 week old Black Lab, Angus Demetrius!

6 weeks old - We first saw Angus on May 2nd - two days before the Tornado hit us.  This was taken on May 29th when we returned to pick him out of the three black males in his litter!

The day he came to home - 8 weeks old June 20th!

9 weeks old - Gazebo Time.  We try to spend the last hour of his day in the Gazebo training him in "quiet time".  Eventually we'll be able to actually get back in the hot tub and relax while he is out there with us...right now with all the new puppy energy?  Well, let's just say that we are in training!

"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....

"After the Wedding" changes to "After we rebuild"....

We'd spent the last two weeks making the grounds safe for a wedding.  We'd done nothing about the destroyed sheds, destroyed concrete slab, rebuilding a well house, repairs to the house itself or to our two vehicles and the camper.  Our John Deere tractor was in the shop; we didn't know if it could be repaired or would be totaled.  Our new well system was exposed to rain and blowing dirt as was most of everything else we owned that resided outside the house. 

We took most of the week following the wedding off; recovering from it all.  But all too soon it was  time to focus on those things. All too soon, I was back on the phone with insurance adjusters and contractors setting up appointments.  David was outside staring at all the work that remained to do clearing away the barn.  

First on the list was to get the vehicles inspected and into the repair shop.  We'd have to fit that all in around work and end of school year activities and a camping trip planned last year.  The Camper was taken in and examined and found to have sustained nothing but superficial damage.  It had been knocked off its support block and lost a reflector cover or two but not enough to go forward with a claim at this point.

The Trailblazer was hit with flying sheet metal and barn wood during the storm.  It lost its side mirror, two hubcaps; required a new windshield and hail damage repair.  In the end, it would be the end of June before it went in for repairs; three sides of it were painted after 9 days in the repair shop, along with a new windshield and replaced hub caps.  

The night of the storm, the Grand Am was parked just the other side of the truck; although we thought the damage to it was some hail and a few scratches in the end, the cost to repair it was greater than that of the truck.  It also got a new windshield and a complete paint job although we needed to pay for a small portion of that total repainting.  The Grand Am was in the shop from July 1 - July 19th. 

Two weeks after the wedding, the contractors arrived for the repairs to the house; a new bathroom roof, several replaced sections on the main roof, a few minor damages to some siding, a couple of missing screens and some inside repair to walls.  We gotten off pretty lucky.  Visitors to the place the day after the storm said that it looked as if the house had remained inside a bubble while destruction took place all around it.  The minor damage to it kind of proves their point, and mine that there were Angels on our roof that night.

We couldn't get to the business of removing our destroyed sheds or slab until the barn was off of them.  The roots of the fallen pecan tree was under the remains of the barn literally holding up one corner of it.   Another corner was held up by David's home made sawhorses that had been in the barn holding wood we had been painting for the framing and walls of the Gazebo.  Yet another corner of the barn still lay on a section of our fencing; we'd put in temporary posts and strung wire fencing in a new spot in order to keep our dogs safely enclosed.  

The stump you see is holding up one corner of the barn; what you can't see is that the 

concrete slab floor of the barn is standing straight up about 6 fix tall.

This crack in our slab goes from one end of the slab to the other.  

It will all need to be hauled away and re-poured.

This is a photo of the back side of our shed where David's Canoe was stored.  The barn is now leaning on it.  We used that back corner of the barn, an old mule shed, for storage with the farmer's permission - still under all of that to this day are several of our ladders, trellis we were saving for the extended shower enclosure, and more things that we cannot remember just yet.  

All along the fences there were holes from limbs of the topped and thinned trees where the force of the wind and downdrafts had driven them deep into the ground.  We'd used logs from the clean up to fill those holes until after the wedding when we'd have time to fill those holes with dirt.

We got back to work on those things we could accomplish while we waited for our Farmer's son to get the barn hauled away. We filled in holes along the fence line.  We salvaged what we could from the wooden shed and took most of it to Nikki and J.C's house for temporary storage.  We moved kayaks and sheet metal roofing and salvaged barn wood to the side of the house where we locked it down to protect it from the lookie lous who still wandered right up onto the property.  We took what we could from the metal shed - tools and remote control hobby cars etc. - into the house to temporarily store it in our eaves. 

To this day, we haven't found temporary homes for all of the things we stored in the barn and the two sheds....we are extending the roofing and screening of our outdoor shower to house those things until we can rebuild.  We extended the footprint of the Well House to store our yard tools (rakes etc.) in it until we can rebuild.

Much of our conversation is prefaced now with "after we rebuild".....

The Wedding Part Three

There were quite a few things that didn't quite go off as originally planned...the Greek Wedding Dance should have had the traditional props to go along with it.  The Gazebo wasn't fully painted or wired or even screened.  The person responsible for making the signs that would point the way to the wedding would forget to do them and we'd have people getting lost and arriving a few minutes late (even though we held off starting for an additional five minutes to try to accommodate this.)

But when making all those initial plans, we hadn't factored in such a thing as a Tornado two weeks before the wedding.  We'd not factored in that the storm would thin out our "covered" property because the topped and thinned trees would allow the sun to shine so brightly into our guests (and the Bride's) faces during the ceremony.  

In the end, the setting was beautiful; the ceremony was moving; the reception was filled with laughter and dancing; in the end, our daughter married the man of her dreams and started her new life.  How could we ask for anything more than that?

In the end, the Tornado is part of the story.  Friends and family members are a larger part of our story than they would have been without that storm.  Nikki and J.C. had their relationship tested in the days before the wedding and learned that together they can weather any storm : )  In the end, just as I whispered to David after he gave our daughter away in marriage....despite all the obstacles that blew into our path...We Did It.

The "We did it" shot taken just after Nikki and J.C. drove away in their taxi!  And just seconds before the sky opened up and showers of blessing rained down upon us!

"Mama's Song" ~ The Wedding Part Two

David sat down beside me after giving our daughter away.  I grabbed his hand and whispered "we did it".   In the video, you can see him throw his head back and rest it on the chair before quickly sitting back up.

In the days since the Wedding, many have asked us (including our daughter) if we ever even thought about canceling it after the Tornado basically made our home look like a war zone just 14 days before the big date.  My answer? "No!".  David's is a bit slower in coming.  

Before friends and family arrived to help us begin to dig our way out that Sunday morning, he stood in the middle of the fallen pecan tree yelling.  While I can't repeat his exact words here (!), basically they were "where do we start?".  He'd later tell me that he couldn't see how we'd get the place safe for 100 guests in the time we had available.

We've been married 31 years.  We've been together for 33 years.  We have what I wish every couple had and what I've counseled my children to look for in a partner...a relationship where we balance each other.  When I am being pessimistic, David is optimistic and the table turns as needed.  In this case, I was the optimist - relying on faith that we could and would pull this one out.  While David concentrated on the physical aspects of cleaning up and building (and rebuilding) what we could before the wedding (as well as working 12 hour shifts at his job) I dug in and got the contractors we needed and dealt with the insurance claims and the power, water, phone and TV folks.

We didn't pull this Wedding off on our own.  Nikki and J.C. were there in the midst of all the stress and exhaustion and fear that sometimes made even me think we might not make it.  But what I saw in my daughter's relationship through those two weeks, I see in my own relationship with her father.  It reaffirmed what I already thought I knew about J.C. and why I asked for "Mama's Song" to be sung at the Wedding.

Photography by Alvarez Imaging - I would love to be able to play the audio on this slideshow but due to copyright issues, I cannot.  If you'd like to hear the song, press play on the video just below and then begin the slideshow....!  It won't quite line up correctly, but you'll get the idea!

We made it!

We'd spent Thursday night with our daughter and soon to be family decorating the fences, stringing lights and going over last minute plans.  

On Friday morning, David and Dallas headed up to get the Sound System while Mystie and I completed all the inside tasks for the arriving family while we waited for the delivery of the dance floor and the chairs.  That night, we'd have the rehearsal dinner!

As I prepared for the mad rush to come, I pondered all the little things that didn't get done; the Gazebo was 90% screened; the lights would go up but with a temporary rigging job rather than with the wiring hidden.  The half walls were supposed to have been painted white but would be the yellow of concrete board. 

The paving stone pathway that led from the front porch to the back patio had been badly damaged from the dragging of all the debris after the storm.  I was concerned that someone would twist an ankle, but there was no time left to relay those stones.   And the lawn was full of holes where limbs had gone straight into them driven deep by the wind.  The newly laid sod had been pushed a full six inches over the barn slab and there were now gaps between many of the individual pieces. 

We still didn't have shoes and slacks for David to wear with the shirt and tie that Nikki had gotten for him to wear.  

But we were out of time.  What didn't get done just would have to be ignored.

It was time to Party!  

We made it.

The Wedding!

Sign hiding missing trellis made using part of the old chicken coop

It's Thursday May 15th.  Dallas and Mystie have taken Hunter to school for me and David is working.  Tonight, Nikki and her Maid of Honor, her man and her soon to be Step Daughters would be coming over to begin the decorating.

But for the moment it was just me at the house.  There were no contractor's trucks in the driveway.  The trailer full of debris had been hauled off the night before.  I walked the property with my video camera in peace and quiet; I could hear nothing but birds singing and the sound of our sprinkler going.

Order.  

Out of Chaos.  In 12 days.

Facebook Post Thursday May 16th (Me):  

Done.  What doesn't get done, doesn't get done.  Pooped.  I'm ready to PARTY!

Two more wake ups and the Big Day would be upon us!

Almost there.....

Facebook Post Wednesday May 15th (me) Gazebo screen UP! Door ON. Siding going ON as I write this....Yard Guys will be here sometime to finish up the final pickup of logs and other things still around the property - replace brand new sod that was laid four days before the tornado in places where it was swept away or ruined by the weight of a 100 year old tree laying on it for four days....and mow for us since our John Deere is out of commission! Lay the rest of the stone.....Put up the new coop....finish potting flowers....Hey, we may actually make it!

We'd decide on Wednesday that the Gazebo wouldn't get painted (white) before the wedding. We were out of time. The next day would be spent finishing up the exterior decorating (lights on fences etc.) and Friday morning we'd have the deliveries made of chairs and dance floor and needed to start getting ready for all the family members coming in from out of town on Friday for the Rehearsal Dinner.

All our focus had been on getting the yard safe for our guests and the Gazebo walled and screened in order to serve food at the Reception for the past 8 days; the inside of the house was a mess and the camper needed to be readied for overflow family accommodations.  It was time to shift our focus totally to the Wedding!

While Wednesday was a very busy day, it was a fun day.  We could see that we would make it now.  All of the friends and family who'd shown up had helped us to accomplish what many admitted later they thought we would never be able to do.  Our homeowner's insurance had paid for the whole house to be pressure washed.  We'd found someone available to make our trees safe and help us repair fences and gates and sod and get our landscaping looking beautiful while all around us the damage to other's property was still visible. 

There was a lot more stress to come as we pulled it all together and a whole lot of things that we'd not get to do at the Reception that we'd planned on doing,  but our daughter was going to get her wedding at her home just as she'd wanted! 

And while we worked and laughed and realized we had this thing handled, God decided to remind us that he had a sense of humor; that he is always there in every situation we may find ourselves in.....

The field tornado followed the exact same path as the real tornado had done, reminding us all of all that we had come through together, with God and good friends and loving family.  My new Son in Law and I would see another of these whirling dervishes as we waited outside in the front yard for the rental company to unload the dance floor and chairs on Friday morning.  It was another reminder of who was ultimately in control!

2 days left till the Wedding!

A Huge Mess...and a Mama almost has a Melt Down!

Saturday May 11th - One Week From The Wedding!

David was heading into a three day work weekend.  Shane and Jesse were going to tackle the pecan that still lay across most of our new sod that had been laid just a little more than a week past.  Hunter's two best friends were coming to spend the day helping us out.  Mr. S, dad to one of the boy's, decided he would stay and help keep them on the job for me.  Let me tell you something about Mr. S; he is exactly the kind of friend one wants in a situation like this. He's not the only one who showed us how to be a really good friend, but his story is the easiest to write about....

He showed up on that Sunday morning after the tornado and stayed through the day helping us clear our way off the back patio and to the gate and the barn area.  We didn't ask him to show up to help.  He simply showed up and began working.  This Saturday morning was no different.  He showed up with the two boys and came into the house and said "what do you need done?"  I pointed to the refrigerator door and its mass of lists of "to do".  He took a list and the boys and he got it done.

They finished the french drain digging (that David had started the previous Saturday afternoon before the tornado hit us) and filled it with stones.  They cleared the driveway area of limbs that we had just pushed out of our paths as we concentrated on the inside yard where the wedding would be held.  They drug the driveways with a magnet and picked up pieces of metal and nails and other debris that could puncture a tire.  And they added to the bon fire that was started on every day that our Farmer's son worked to salvage what he could from his family barn.   The chicken coop was still on the slab between our two sheds and they removed what they could of that debris and helped the tree guys haul and stack the logs from the pecan tree.  

Progress!

Sunday May 12th 

It was Mother's Day; S and J showed up to work on trees even so - another God Bless Them is due.  They brought their children with them and put them on raking the area outside the fences.  But, by now, I was seeing that they worked in a way that was completely opposite from the way I worked!  They would start on an area, make a mess, and move to another area before completing the work needed in the first area.  When they would leave for the day, it would seem as though the tornado had come through the trees again.  

Hunter and I would head out and clean up as much of their mess as we could, hauling debris to the next day's burn pile or out to the road, still saving what we could use for cooking and/or leaving the larger logs out there for them to move later.  We'd also have to go on a hunt for our new yard tools that Shane would use (they are a tree and landscaping service with J being the tree guy and S the yard guy) and leave wherever he last used them (i.e. we found our new fan rake propped up against the debris pile set out for the county to pick up one night and found it in the middle of our driveway another night!).

Don't get me wrong!  I appreciated that they were working their butts off to help us get everything safe for our guests; but the stress and exhaustion of getting it all done in time was wearing me down.  The constant noise of a chain saw was wearing me down.  These guys were young and they were doing us a huge favor but on Sunday, I still saw so much that needed done that my brain craved order and all I saw was chaos!

Facebook Post Monday May 13th  (Dallas) Going to Florida today. Wasn't gonna go till Thursday, but a Tornado kinda changed everyone's plans. Can't wait to see my sister get married on Saturday!

It was time to start thinking about the decorating.  There were signs to make and flowers to purchase and pot and place. I took Hunter to school and met up with Mom and Nikki to purchase the flowers for the wedding.  We had lost so many of our hanging pots and had so many places where the sod had been torn up by the trees and limbs, so we were basically buying not only to re-decorate the front porch in her chosen colors but also cover up areas that we knew we would not be able to repair before the big day.  It took us visits to three different garden centers to get what we needed...and filled up every spare spot in our cars to get it all back home.

Mom and Nikki headed back home with me; neither of them had been there since the previous Monday and with all the work that they'd heard about, I think they were expecting something different than they saw.  The guys were hired to not only take care of the trees but to replace the fencing; not only to take down the tree limbs or remove a tree but to stack what we were keeping and haul away the rest.  Each night, they promised they'd get the fences done and the large logs stacked the next day.

Hunter and I had been picking up the smaller stuff every night to not only help the guys move the job along but also to help us feel that we had some semblance of normalcy to our lives.  And each night we still had broken fences and gates that wouldn't shut and huge logs all over the yard.

When we returned home, the place where we normally park our cars was filled with logs they had simply thrown over the broken fence.  Logs from the pecan they'd worked on removing from the yard and logs from the holly tree.  The three of us could barely get to the gate from our cars stepping over logs.  The back fence was still laying down - despite the promises to get it back up BEFORE Dallas arrived with a 3rd dog needing to be kept safe.  Dallas and Lucy were on their way here that very moment.  

These are not the actual logs in the parking area; these are on the shed slab from the pecan tree but, the logs were this size and smaller and thrown everywhere!

I was done.  I got out of the flower filled car loaded for bear.  Luckily Nikki was there to stop me.  We went into the house and Nikki said "give me the list of what they were hired to do and I will deal with them...I'll use the tearful bride if I need to!"  Fifteen minutes later, I looked outside and saw them stacking the logs while Nikki stood there with her hands on her hips pointing at the list, pointing at the fence, pointing at the list and so on.  She spent most of the next three hours outside directing and charming and getting them to get things done.

By the end of the day, those lads had the fences fully repaired (the posts were broken and needed to be replaced and the fencing restrung or replaced and attached); and there was a huge stack of logs to one side of the parking area allowing us to actually park at least one of our vehicles in its normal spot.  They left at 9 p.m. !

Facebook Post May 14th (me) - Tree guys FINALY finished up last night after dark. All 12 pecan trees, one Holly and both Cypress trees were either destroyed or heavily damaged. Fences back up with new fence posts installed. Outbuildings as cleared as can be until the barn is out of there (because it is sitting on our stuff and we are at the point where if we move the wrong thing it will come the rest of the way down). Insurance provided Pressure Washers here doing the House for us as I write this. Flowers for the Wedding ready to go in. 5 plus hours of playlists finally complete! Seeing the light at the end of the tunnel finally!

Progress

4 days till the Wedding

Getting it done....

Friday May 10th - 7 working days left till the Wedding
We drank our morning coffee accompanied by the sound of chain saws.  It would be an almost constant sound for the next 6 days.  Jesse and Shane had gotten the most dangerous of the "hangers" out of the trees and had temporarily propped up the front fencing for us on Wednesday evening; they would now get the rest of the hangers out and trim and paint all the damaged limbs in our 11 remaining pecans and one of the cypress trees.  They would cut the holly tree up and remove it for us.  They would cut away as much of the pecan that had fallen in back as they could safely take care of; its roots were under the barn wall (the concrete that those roots lay under stand up 4 feet straight in the air under the debris).  In fact, those roots (and that upright concrete slab) are still there to this day waiting for the remainder of the barn to be removed.

Those 6 days would test my patience.  The constant noise around me when I am used to the stillness of the country  - where the music of birds and breezes ruffling the leaves and a tractor working a distant field are the norm -  was wearing.  It seemed like every ten minutes, the dogs would be barking as Jesse or Shane knocked on the door to point out a place where the damage was worse than thought and we'd need to take off another limb.  Visits from Contractors to finish the well system or fix the hot tub or inspect a roof or the R.V.; a constantly ringing phone, and a yard that required an hour or two of clean up every night after the trees were worked on were all mentally exhausting.

This photo gives a glimpse of what we'd see at the end of every day the trees were being worked on.  

Hunter and I would head out just before dinner and start hauling the debris either to the front for the county to 

pick up or to the burn pile that was lit every day.  We'd save as much of the pecan wood as possible for cooking.

 This was mostly from the damaged Cypress tree that sits just outside our kitchen window - it was planted by 

Ella Wilton in 1909 shortly after their immigration from England.

We were averaging about 4 hours of sound sleep before suddenly waking up with a start before sunrise; those lists hanging on the refrigerator door were the first thing we checked while having our coffee.

Hunter went to school dealing with not only end of the year exams but also his SATs and ACTs and final concerts and banquets.  He spent each evening home out there helping us to clear out and salvage. 

When home, David continued to work in three different directions; he helped Shane and Jesse where needed; he worked on putting up the screening and the walls of the Gazebo; and he continued to enter the totaled metal and wood sheds salvaging what he could of our contents. Then he'd go to work a 12 hour shift at his real job.

I played the Wedding Music Playlist I was creating every chance I got to remind us of why we were doing all of this so quickly while all around us the damage remained untouched.  Our farmer still had trees down across his driveway; driving in to town we passed places where other than small cleanups nothing had been touched.  (Our farmer's trees were only removed from his driveway two weeks ago - six weeks after the tornado.)  

When our spirits got heavy and we'd didn't think we make it; or we'd ask "why in the world did this happen to us", we'd remind each other of how blessed we were to have gotten folks to work on our place so quickly.  Our home insurance adjuster called contractors and told them what had to be done before the wedding and what needed to wait until after the wedding. Our vehicle insurance adjusters (3 of them) were patient and understanding of our continually putting them off until after the wedding.

But Jesse and Shane were the real blessing.  While the fallen and broken trees around us turned yellow and died because no one could get a tree company to get to their jobs, our trees were being repaired and/or removed on a daily basis.    There was no denying that God had sent them our way.

And at night, I organized all the photos and video we'd taken for the insurance adjusters into a "movie" we could look back with our future grandchildren years from now and remember this time.  Making that movie was not only a way to tell "Our Wedding Story" but it was therapeutic for me... in the photos and videos, I could see not only the progress we made each day, but also the love and support of those friends and family who continued to show up to help us out.

Progress!

6 more days until the Wedding!