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.

March Forward...

This time last year, we were planning a wedding.  Now we are still cleaning up and rebuilding after a tornado.  In between, we lost my Dad and found out that our beautiful Angus Demtrius (now 10 months) has Hip Dysplasia.  We've fought with our auto insurance company for seven months to get them to pay a debt to one of the contractors they hired to repair our tornado damaged vehicles. And we fought to keep the back 20 feet of our property from being "stolen" by the heirs of our Farmer Across the Street's estate.  We've had rebuilding delayed time and again by things outside of our control.  It has been one hell of a year.

Immediately after the tornado, rebuilding was something that was there in the back of our minds but recovering everything in the damaged sheds and finding temporary storage for it all was foremost.  During Gazebo time (we end the evenings in our hot tub in the Gazebo ; ) we'd discuss a plan that included building a new barn in the same footprint as the old sheds and slabs and leaving fencing and landscaping pretty much the same as it was before the storm.  In November, that plan was obviously not going to happen.  We had run smack dab into realizing that the seemingly friendly and neighborly relationship we'd had with our Farmer's son hid a passive aggressive agenda that would rock our world for the next four months.   It began almost the minute he had put both his parents into nursing homes and became the power behind that estate.

Due to the power of the Title Company who closed our purchase of this property and a few other God driven events, we won the fight over the land our well, parking area, and Gazebo all sit upon but it was not easy and it was not fun.

And so we move on with the plan to rebuild.  Totally different than our original plan but one that protects our interests. We move on knowing that evil can exist behind the sweet smile of your neighbor.  But that God still has the ultimate control of any situation you may find yourself in.

Marching forward….

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 forward...

The view from the front porch and from the road has changed as well.  In order to put in the new driveway and gate, we needed to move what we thought were six ancient azaleas that somehow managed to survive the storm.  When we got down to the business of moving them, we found that instead of f six azaleas there were actually eleven of them.  

In this photo from a few years ago, you can see the old azaleas forming a corner of our yard with our fencing running inside the boundary lines about five feet along the front and along the side. To accommodate the driveway, we moved the fence along the north side of the property out to the boundary line and moved all but two of those azaleas along the front.  Here's another view of the bushes in bloom….from the road looking in. The pink one began the formation of the corner you see in the first photo.

And here is the new view; they are just now losing their bloom for this year; we didn't think they would bloom after just being transplanted but bloom they did.  

And a slightly different angle….

The rock runs right up along where the old fence ran; the rock is from the 20 foot slab that was destroyed in the tornado.  We are still breaking that old thing up and using the rock to secure both the new culvert and an old one along the front that diverts water during tropical storms.  

Today Hunter and I have been planting more jasmine in front of each fence post and transplanting fern to run in between each post.

Eventually, that fence line will look like this one on the other side of the property…

Another view of the new driveway and the stone that lines the first part of the entrance.  We cut away a few feet of the extra large drain field and David will start building a bulk head there this week.  The wood will be painted white to match the stone and the fence posts….  The two small trees you can just barely see the other side of the pecan are the Lemon and Cumquat trees that used to be in front of our back fence hiding the old parking area.  We are hoping they survive the transplant because they both took a real beating in the tornado when the ancient pecan fell right on top of them.  The lemon tree was accidentally cut down almost to the ground while we chainsawed our way out of the yard.  It has a lot of new growth on it so we have our fingers crossed.

Although Friday night was bit depressing sitting on the back patio looking at a sea of various shades of brown; taking the time today to look at each section of what we have so far accomplished and focusing on moving forward, I find I can visualize the day when once again, our place is an oasis for our spirits.

Our View…boy has it changed.

This was our view last May about three days before the tornado hit us.  You can see the two ancient pecans that were destroyed in the storm and the backdrop that was the 100 year old barn.  You barely notice the cars parked because of the fence that ran between the old wooden shed (destroyed) and the gate just the other side of the pump house (destroyed); the fence was covered in Confederate Jasmine and had a lemon tree, a cumquat tree and a large rose bush on the yard side.  You can barely see the chicken coop sitting just in front of the old barn and between the two sheds.

This was our view (taken the same day) looking from the barn to the house.  All of this was changed in a storm that barely lasted 4 minutes but has taken us 11 months so far to even begin to set it all right again.  The next photo was taken the day after the tornado and after we'd spent about 8 hours with chainsaws cutting our way from the back porch to the barn.

And the next one is what we've been staring at for the last four months.

A slightly different angle…shot just after we'd spent our first day on a Bobcat moving dirt and rock and the shed.  Note all the junk on the slab behind the fence is NOT ours.  That constitutes the remaining contents of the old barn that has been there since September without him doing much of anything except walk around with his hands on his hips.  WE cleaned up all the trash debris from over there in November - glass, wood, broken pottery, and bits and pieces of barn wood.  

And this is the view we saw after another day on the Bobcat……at least the Barn Junk is out of sight for the most part….

But this is what had us slightly depressed after spending the day moving dirt to form what will eventually be our new driveway and parking area….and had us doing a bit of re-thinking about the layout of it.  There is yet another boat to come in the fence plus three vehicles.  There just isn't room the way we have it now.  Something that looked big enough and "should" have worked according to measurements just won't work after all…plus, I have to say that I don't want to be looking at boats and kayaks from my back patio.

So we walked around and did some more measuring and decided that we'll move the old metal shed (that is only temporary until the new barn/garage is built next spring) forward to line up with the front of the pump house.  This will allow us to hang the kayaks on the back of the shed and park the fishing boat behind the shed hiding them from any view but from the back driveway and allow room for two of the vehicles to pull in right beside the RV. The third vehicle will park behind the RV.  

I immediately knew that for me it was the lack of trees and other landscaping that was bothering me the most…although it is not really noticeable in the photo, it is a sea of various shades of brown.  The grass has been so trampled and damaged from all the reconstruction that it is mostly weeds right now.  Removing one of the paths (the one that sort of leads to the shed but used to lead to our back gate) and replanting grass there will be a big help.  Moving my stone planters in front of the shed to hide the bottom of it will be a temporary solution to looking under the shed while sitting on the patio.  And finally, once the rock is brought in to mark the parking area, adding a black edging and planting a foundation row of boxwoods or something will break up that "sea of various shades of brown".  

You also can't see in the photo, but we've already planted Confederate jasmine on the new fence just the other side of the RV and down the new driveway.  Once that takes off, that will provide a back drop and again draw the eye away from the "sea of …" …you've got it.

And if the Farmer's son ever gets all his junk out of here….

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….

Legal Issues Over…Work begins again!

After months of being unable to move forward with our rebuilding, the day finally arrived when all the legal issues were settled.  We were ready for a big push to get things moving…..We hauled rock and dirt from the former RV parking spot and filled in holes left from removed trees.  We moved Confederate Jasmine and fences and azaleas to accommodate the new front gate and driveway... But some of the jobs were just too much without some heavy equipment….

Steel Toed Boots....

     Why I need those boots...hundreds of rusty nails!

I got a pair of steel toed boots about 8 years ago primarily because we spent a lot of time traipsing through the woods in South Carolina looking for old property boundaries and family burial grounds.  

There were times when we had to cut our way through the trees and vines and times when we would see a slithering snake getting out of our way.  Those boots gave me a sense of security that was needed.

I've used them around this old farmhouse land a few times in the past nine years, but most of the time they stayed in the box they came in tucked away in the guest room closet.  

They're sitting in the mud room right now and being used almost every day because in the past two weeks both David and I have stepped on nails as we continue to clean up the debris of our outbuildings in preparation for the rebuilding. Despite our dragging the grounds with magnets and de-nailing most of the lumber and carefully placing those boards that might take a bit more effort or have a hand made nail in them that we want to save, nails got us.  For me, it meant a trip to the Doctor for a tetanus booster and soaking my foot four times each day...that was one rusty old nail that got me.  David's was a "clean" nail that was not too many years in use prior to the tornado; and he's had a booster since we moved here.....

I have a love-hate relationship with those old boots; they are heavy and awkward and there is absolutely no way to walk gracefully in them....but I get a kick out of the farm workers as they drive by and point at them and give me a thumbs up!  I don't think they see too many women weed whacking and carrying wood to the fire pit wearing steel toed boots!  

I hope those heavy awkward boots will soon be put away in the closet again; I plan on getting a good pair of cowboy boots to replace them...that is what most of the folks out here wear to do their chores...I'll be able to do the hard work that this place requires and still walk with a bit of gracefulness!

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.

Counting Blessings Part Two...

We stare at chaos.  We stare at all that remains to do to fully recover from the tornado.  Sometimes, we snap at each other.  One problem is that the old barn is hindering our progress; another is the rain that we have been getting this summer. It seems each time David gets the tools plugged in and ready to go, the rain comes down and its a race to get it all put safely away again.  So, what to do?

We keep moving forward with the little things.  Today I'm beginning to move out roses, ferns and border grass from the garden that is placed on two sides of the old metal shed.  Since the barn/garage will (eventually) sit where the shed now sits, those plants have to be moved away to make room for first, the new slab that will be poured and then for the construction of the building itself.  We continue to stack wood from the trees that came down.  David works on little things; he put a cat door in the Gazebo wall today (the cats will temporarily have no place to go once the old barn and shed are gone) and worked on a few other things in there.

Every little step forward makes us feel just a bit better, but still, we stare at chaos.  So, when frustration begins to take over, we count our blessings.

Blessing Six and Seven:  We replaced the water treatment system in 2004.  New systems are much more energy efficient.  Our system was nearing the end of its life span and had to be repaired last year (2012), we had plans to replace it this coming fall after we got through the expenses of the wedding.  The tornado took down the Holly Tree which came down upon the well house and the treatment system, destroying both of them.  Although we were without water for almost 48 hours, we now have a new energy efficient treatment system.  Only a few days before the tornado struck us, David warned me that he would be rebuilding a new well house in next year's project time because the old one was starting to have some rot and also was too small to be able to easily work on the pump and treatment system when needed (normal maintenance). His plan was to build it to be a mini version of the Gazebo.  Insurance paid not only for the new system but also the new house that is currently being built.

Blessing Eight:  The new Barn/Garage; we planned on building one when we moved in nine years ago but put aside that plan because of the state of the old barn that bordered our property.  Four hurricanes in 2004 and numerous tropical storms in the years past - specifically Faye who stalled over us for three days - took their toll on that old structure.  We had spoken with our Farmer across the street many times about either our buying the barn from them or his doing some repairs on it...with no success.  All we could do was pray that it would go eventually go down in a way that didn't come down on our structures.  (One might possibly be thinking "well, why did you put your structures so close to it? The answer lies in the way the property boundaries were laid out when the yard was cut out of the farm so many years ago, there was no where else to place those structures.)

In the end, it was trees that took out our structures and the old barn.  With three months of rain in only three days followed by a tornado on that last day of rain, those trees didn't stand a chance of surviving such a direct hit.  When the 100 year old pecan tree was uprooted by the storm, its roots lifted one corner of the barn as the tree fell onto our shed and slab.  The barn roof and siding blew off in the storm as the structure itself came down and went through our metal shed along with hail stones the size of golf balls.  Finally, the winds blew the barn as it fell so that its remains literally lay on our buildings.

This is probably the most difficult "blessing" to remember as we count them off one by one; because this is the one that will take the longest to complete.  The old barn has to be hauled off bit by bit before we can remove our old shed and the destroyed concrete slab.  We can't even begin to rebuild until all of that is done.

But in the end, this will be probably the greatest blessing beside our survival of the tornado.

We just have to keep remembering that!

"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 we rebuild"

When we moved here a little over 9 years ago, we planned on putting up a barn/garage.  It would have been built beside the old barn that bordered our property.

After a few weeks of settling in, David and I took our first good look at that old barn.  We realized that it was infested with termites as was the wooden shed that was on our property and which we soon tore down and burned.  

Speaking with the Farmer across the street, we learned the history of that building; a history which included the fact that after Hurricane Dora tore through here years ago, the farmers had taken three tractors and "pulled that barn right back up".  It quickly became clear that putting a lot of money into a new barn/garage would not be wise. We'd need that old barn tented for termites and structurally inspected to ensure that it wouldn't affect our building.  Obviously that wasn't going to happen. 

Over the years we had discussed buying back for our property some of that which had been sold to our Farmer.  

Various things always seemed to get in the way of that being done.  Had we succeeded, we would have put up our own barn/garage in a different area of the property.  

So we made do....

The tornado destroyed not only that old barn, but all of our outbuildings as well.  

While the Farmer's son says they'll rebuild their barn, I doubt that that will actually happen.  They don't actively farm any longer; they lease their fields to other farmers who grow potatoes for Frito Lay.   Regardless of whether they will ever rebuild a barn, we will now be building our own barn/garage....finally. 

We'll haul away the destroyed metal shed and haul away the destroyed slab once the barn is completely off of them. 

Then a new slab will be poured and the barn/garage will be built. It will be able to house not only our camper and two vehicles but also provide a work room and storage room.  

We plan on having a covered porch extending out towards the front of our yard for not only working on projects under cover but in the open air, but also to protect sound systems and open bars for any future large gatherings we have here.  (The plan is to never again have to answer "no" to the question "do you have a back up plan in case of rain?" : ) 

We'll also now be able to recover some "yard" that is currently being used as our parking area.  A new chicken coop will most likely be built there with a covered area for the chickens to safely hunt and gather during those times that they have to be penned for a few days. 

We've been able to salvage the metal roofing from the wooden shed to use on the new Well House. It is under construction as I write this.  David designed it to be a mini version of the gazebo.  It's "footprint" will be larger than the old well house so that working on the system will be easier in the future as well as providing us a temporary place for storing our garden tools (rakes, shovels etc.) until the new barn/garage is built.  

"After we rebuild", this place will look a whole lot different.  I mourn what we lost...two beautiful old trees and that historic 100 plus year old barn.  The charming view we've grown used to is no longer there.  I no longer can gaze out the kitchen window at that barn and I wonder as I stare at the destruction whether I'll ever love the "new" view that will eventually be seen. 

The place will have a new charm since we'll be using wood salvaged from the old barn that the farmer is selling us and will be built to look "old".  But it won't have the same roof line because of how it will have to positioned to fit our property boundaries.  And it won't have the story that that 

old barn had...it won't be filled with "Made by McCoy" pottery that was put there who knows how many years ago; it won't house an antique tractor or tricycles more than 40 or 50 years old. 

"After we rebuild" is a phrase that is getting old about now.  Its taken much longer than anticipated for the farmer's son to remove the barn debris.  There is so much that we can't do until that is a completed job.  I am tired of looking at the chaos that still exists over there.  But, I also know that he is facing the same obstacles that we are...Florida heat and afternoon thunderstorms; the flies and gnats and other biting insects that we deal with during the summer months; not to mention all the responsibilities of caring for his elderly parents at their home and maintaining his own place in a nearby town.

David and I have resurrected an old childhood habit that I learned growing up in a Baptist home...

"Count your blessings, name them one by one.  Count your many blessings, see what God has done!".....  

More about that tomorrow.....

What the barn looks like today....that is our Moggie sitting up on the destroyed roof line!

"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!

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