farm life

FARM KIDS AND FLYING HAY.

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We had an 80-acre farm in Wisconsin that grew veggies for canning for winter food.  We also grew wheat, corn, and hay for the winter critters.  We raised beef cattle, had horses for fun, and a 4-H project with rabbits that got way out of control but filled the freezers with meat for a year (that’s another story).

One of my fondest memories growing up was of making hay.  Now before you panic, let me explain.  These were the old, small bales, the ones that usually weighed between 50-80 pounds and a normal adult could pick up and throw around.  This process became a family tradition.

We were the family with all the land and all the equipment, so when it came time to doing something like making hay, it was an extended family event.  Cousins, Aunts, Uncles and even some close family friends would be involved.  The parents and older kids worked the fields, while the kids got to work up in the haystack in the barn (I know, we were ripped off!).  The lower starting levels were not bad; but as the stack grew and the gap between the top of the hay and the top of the barn got smaller, the heat got more intense.  I don’t remember anyone passing out, but I also do not remember anyone coming out of there dry.

hay-baler-pic

(This is close to what ours was like, except back then there were no side racks, the hay came off the baler and we pulled it onto the wagon and stacked it.  The wheels were also up front and in back instead of in the middle)

The only major issue I remember is at the end of one season; the kids were allowed to go out and ride the last wagon of hay back (huge praise for our kid work).  My dad’s brother, Uncle Vern, was the tractor driver that day.  The wagon was full, we were all on top, and he was cruising back to the house.

The road from the hay field to the barn had only one stop.  The problem was it was at an intersection that sat at the bottom of a very steep hill (appropriately there also happened to be an old cemetery right across the street from where we had to stop – a very spooky cemetery!).  Well, Uncle Vern knew how bad this intersection was so he had been watching the top of the hill as we approached.  Instead of coming to a complete stop Uncle stood up, looked both ways one more time and then gunned the tractor.   (Everyone hated that turn because you couldn’t see anyone coming until they were already over the hill and just about on that intersection…this is why I said the cemetery was: appropriately placed there – eeek!).  He started the turn, was going a bit too fast, the hay on the wagon was not tied down (ya, no one even thought to do it back then), and we all tipped over!  The hay and the kids flew.  The tractor and, surprisingly, the wagon remained on their wheels.

UNCLE VERN STOPPED!

Parents from the house were watching from the top of the hay barn and saw us all fly.  Immediately they came rushing down the hill to help.  One group stopped traffic up by our driveway on the top of the hill.  Another group went to stop traffic in the other directions.  The rest ran to our aid.  You should have seen their faces.

NO ONE WAS HURT – NOT EVEN A SCRATCH, AND WE WERE LAUGHING!

 calvin-n-hobbes-laughing

Yep, crazy farm kids, had a blast flying off the top of the bales into the ditch.  It was grassy and semi-soft.  We were on the top of the stacked bales, so nothing landed on top of us, and besides; we all had jumped from greater heights inside the barn into the straw pile.  We thought it was fun – scary, but fun.  Later, eventually, so did our parents.

hay-wagon-pic

(This is very close to what it looked like before the dump.  The bales were stacked the same way, only add one more top row – 5 high – and we sat on top.) Ahhh,  childhood memories!

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SO WHAT’S WRONG WITH A YOUNG ADDICTION?

/ helbergfarmstories / 11 Comments

Don’t you just love a good addiction?  My first one started when I was only seven years old, and my parents put me into 4-H.  We had cattle, horses and lots of other farming things that I could have worked on and taken to the fair – but nooo – I chose to take a shot at knitting.  YES, with yarn – now how scary is that?

I have no clue what attracted me to it.  My mother would crochet once in a while (in a very long while), but it was not one of her passions.  I still remember the very first pair of needles I picked up.  I swear there was some type of chemical on them that the moment I touched them I became obsessed!  It was (and still very much is) an addiction.  The very first thing I ever created was called “The Pixie Slipper” – I won first prize – blue ribbon.  It was the ugliest thing anyone ever suggested for a pattern.  Real easy to do for a first-timer, but still ugly.  What brought all this up?  The pattern is back – EEEKKK!

You can find tons of all types of handmade slippers (and just about everything else) on eBay or Etsy.  I have searched and used both, but this one just made me giggle:

pixie-slippers

(you can click on the pic to take you to the site for more info)

Other than the major curling in the toes, it is pretty much the same old pattern.  Funny, the whole thing is just one big square?!?  If you go here: https://www.etsy.com/market/pixie_slippers  you can find a ton of variations to this project – who would have thought?

I remember putting such effort into that project.  There was just something about the feel of the needles that hooked me (yes, pun intended).  It then became the different feel of the yarns and fibers.  When I went to the fair after judging, I spotted so many other beautiful projects that kids just like me had done, and I was instantly drugged!  I would never be the same innocent me again – yarn – the culprit!

Now that I am older (notice I did not say wiser!?), I have come to realize it was not the yarn’s fault…it was the needles!  Well, it’s not really their fault either…it’s my tiny hands and fingers and MY PIANO TEACHER!!  Dun, dun, daaaa – the plot thickens!

hands-on-piano

Her method of teaching us (yep, little sis and I both had to take piano lessons – mom insisted!) was to wack the back of our hands if we didn’t reach an octave.  (Those that are lucky and have never had to, check out a piano some time – try to reach eight keys with your thumb on one and pinky on the other – that’s an octave.)  I couldn’t because of my short little fingers.  But, if I lowered my hand I could just reach the corners and make it – NOT ALLOWED – WACK! 

“You must pretend you have a golf ball stuck under your palm – this is how you must play!”  Wack – again…never did get that setup – BUT – I still tried.  Then on I was always sticking something in my hands, between my fingers (ok, sometimes up the nose – hee hee), working and trying to make them longer.  Didn’t work.  So, instead, I learned how to be more creative.  My favorite reading is “how-to’s” and love learning new things and techniques.  I love to write, draw, paint and all the other fun things you do with fingers…but the best, and most favorite, is still the original – KNITTING!

 

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THE FIRST TIME I TRIED TO DIE (no, not on purpose!).

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To this day I cannot keep my hands off baby animals.  Don’t care what kind of animal it is, just as long as it is in baby form.  Adults, not so much.

On a farm, there is always some type of babies being born.  If it wasn’t my 4-H rabbits, it was the cousin’s pig.  Well, one fine year we had a Welsh Pony, her name was Dolly.  She was a booger!  The meanest pony I ever met.  Once you got the bridle and saddle on her, she was fun to ride.  Trying to get them on without her stepping on your foot or trying to nip you was another story.  I don’t know where or when it happened, but she got pregnant and had a colt.  A beautiful black and white spotted thing just like her.

dolley and baby

I can’t tell you how many times dad warned us NOT to go near Dolly.  She was very protective of her baby, as a mother should be.  Did I listen?  Nope!  I would go out there for hours and try to get close enough to touch the baby.

There was a small shed out in their pen with the door and window blown out.  Dolly would hide in there with her baby, and I knew it.  I would crawl up to the side of the building and try to reach in to get to touch the baby.  Never worked.

One day I decided I was just going to do it!  Just who did this pony think was the boss anyway?  So, I put on my little cowboy boots, grabbed my coat and off I went.  I marched right into that pen, right up to the pony and that was the last thing I remember of that encounter.

Apparently, she knew she was the boss and the moment I got too close, she decided to show me.  Swung her butt around and planted a hoof square on my head – knocked me out cold.  I was lucky for two reasons:

  1.  Dolly did not want to come after me for more damage once I was down.
  2. Dad saw the whole thing.

He managed to get me to the house (back then you didn’t just rush off to the hospital or doctor, you tried to handle it at home first.) where mom took over and eventually I came around.

Now, I’m not going to say I was okay.  As far as “ok” – that is still left to be determined (sure hope not)!  However, I was an idiot back then, and I will continue to prove this to you in my future family stories. (FYI – Dad’s nickname for me was “Dumb Shit” for a reason.)

headache dog

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THAT DAY MY YOUNGER SISTER “ALMOST” DIED?

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This is the start of something new for my blog.  These are still Helberg Farm Stories, but they are from our family past.  I have decided to share some of my fondest memories one day a week, then current happenings another.  Hope you enjoy reading these as much as I loved living them.

This first one happened when my younger sister was 4, and I was 6 (and yes, I do remember it very well).  (F.Y.I.  my younger sister will be “D” and older will be “M”, in case they do not agree with my humor – hee hee)

It was a normal spring day in Wisconsin.  It had rained the night before, so everything was very wet (a Wisconsin natural state of being).  Mom was tired of hearing us fight – AGAIN – so she kicked us outside.  Looking around for a bit, riding became the order of the day.

Now that I think back on it all we were pretty lucky.  Our farm was eighty acres of rolling hills, woods, creek, and pond.  We also had great neighbors that would let us ride on their properties.  John’s Woods (the name we gave it) was an excellent place to ride and let the child imaginations run wild.  It was about 2 miles long with a perfect square cut out in the middle of it.  This is where a ton of our stories happened.  But for today, this one was actually up by the house.

The family garden was about 100 feet long and about 25 feet across.  We had to grow enough to harvest and process to get us through the next fall.  A wooden fence protected the two sides to the field.  We had horses but also raised beef calves and wintered YMCA horses, so we needed the pasture land for all of them.  Our riding this wet morning took us to that area of the pasture.

Mom was in the kitchen cleaning it up which included doing dishes.  The window over the sink for the dishes faced the garden and that part of the pasture – or most of it.  The far end corner could not be seen clearly from this window.  This, I believe, is what made this story most funny (for me anyway, mom didn’t think so.).

I do not remember what game we were playing that day.  I just remember the race.  There was a huge apple tree next to the long side of the garden, but on the pasture side of the fence.  Our goal was to run our horses up to that apple tree, touch it, and race back to the barn.  First back, of course, wins.

My horse, Folly, was a beautiful red and white pinto.  And she was fast!  My sister’s horse was an off-white buckskin with black mane and tail.  Her name was Highstockings because she had four black legs from hoof to knee.  Looked just like she had on high stockings (duh!?!).

pinto   buckskin

Well, we got out to the tree just fine, but on the return trip Highstockings did not make the far garden corner, she lost her footing and rolled over my sister (remember she is only four years old).  Folly, into the moment, ran straight for the barn.  I jumped off and ran to the house and yelled “D.’s dead.”  Mom freaked out as she only caught the tail of the horse making the corner, but did not see the whole fall.

barrell race horse

(yep, we pretended we were this fast!)

Mom and dad both ran out across the back yard and leaped the fence – then stopped dead in their tracks.  Not only was D. just fine, but she had the reins of the horse up to its mouth held firm in her tiny fist.  She had pulled the horses’ head down till its nose was even with her face, which was now covered in mud.  Her little 4-year-old fist was punching the horse in the nose while she was yelling, “Don’t ever do that again!” (Like it was the horse’s fault we were so stupid?)

To the day they died, my parents loved telling this story.  It took all they had not to laugh hysterically at this mud-drenched, 4-year-old little girl, punching a full grown horse (not a pony mind you, we had HORSES!) because it had lost its footing due to her stupidity on taking the corner so fast when it was this wet.  Of course, now it is one of the thousands of great stories we love to tell when the family gets together.

pony vs horse

(Ok, regular horses not Draft horses – but you get the size difference!)

(My only regret sharing these is that the amazing pictures I had saved from back then were all destroyed in our house fire in 2014 – maybe some of my extended family back there will read this and have some to share with me?  Yes, Cousins, that is a hint!)

muddy kid

(This is pretty close to what she looked like, just darker hair and a bit more mud on the face.  The puddle looked the same.)

 
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I JUST HAVE TO BRAG UP SMART FARM/GARDEN PEOPLE!

/ helbergfarmstories / 3 Comments

The fact that these smart people also happen to be some of our dearest friends is purely coincidental.  We love to think- outside-the-box; you know, look at a stick and see a staircase type of thinkers.  Maybe this is why we have the best close friends in the world, we all think like this.

First example, our own greenhouse.  When we (my sister and I) initially thought about our new farm life, one of the things we knew we had to have was a greenhouse.  If you have the money and the space I highly recommend getting one.  It does not have to be as big as ours, but you need a place to grow your own foods. DSCF5121

I picked this picture to show you that we did build it ourselves (you can also check out my posts from 2012 for a lot more details).  This also gives you an idea of just how big it is.  The out-of-the-box thinking here (Kudos for our friend for thinking of this) is why it is 3 feet in the ground.  You actually have to step down 2 steps to get into it.  The friend also discovered a stellar insulated siding to pour the cement into that gives it a triple insulated side wall on all 4 sides.  The reason for this (for those asking) is to keep it warmer in winter and cooler in summer – on its own – with little to know help needed sometimes in the year.

Well the friend that helped us with this is ALWAYS thinking outside the box.  He came up with a couple of amazing simple things to help on their beautiful gardens.

HAIL – a harsh topic for anyone that loves plants.  You can spend days, months, and years working on your plants, trees, bushes, lawn, gardens and in an instant – HAIL – will destroy all or most all of it – grrr!  Fortunately, (knock on wood) we have not been in the path this year (yet), unfortunately our friends have been for the last several years (major bummer!).  So, Mister Think-Outside-the-Box came up with this nifty idea:

knj garden1

He is (they are) just so ingenious!!  (deserve many, MANY more exclamation points here but my writing checker won’t let me do it – boo hoo!)  Take a good look at this pic.  Not the raised beds, not the walk ways but the top and the slanted boards.  They placed wire hog/field panels (like this):

field pannel

The hole size in the squares is about 4”x4”, some have narrower holes toward the bottom to keep baby pigs in)

All over the tops of their garden spaces.  Then covered that with a finer mesh wire like this:

rabbit wire

Some people call it rabbit wire because the square holes are smaller than the holes in chicken wire and rabbit feet won’t fall through.  These are only about the size of a dime.)

NOW HOW BRILLIANT ARE THEY!!!

Then (like the top wasn’t enough smarts), check out the boards that are slanted in the raised bed.  They also have the hog panels attached to them – FOR THE VINING PLANTS NO LESS!  HOW DO THEY KEEP DOING IT?

They just keep coming up with these outstanding ideas.  How many years have my sister and I cried over lost crops to hail damage, but we never once thought of something so simple (almost seems like it should be common sense – LMAO), but so right?  We have hog panels all over our place, mostly for fencing.  There are some that have been damaged to the point of not hanging on a fence anymore, so they are just lying around – OH DUH!?!  (OK, can’t stop giggling at myself now.)

We have seen the panels used for gardening at this angle:

field panel in use

But never once thought far enough outside-the-box to come up with the perfect ideas that they did (yes, a bit of jealousy here – but just a bit because they are dear friends!).

I know that some of you (my Blogging Buddies) have seen some pretty nasty hail this year (maybe in past years also), so I wanted to share their smarts with those of you that have the same issues with your gardens.  I also wanted to brag up how beautiful their work is:

knj garden 2

Makes you want to just grab a lemonade, pull up a chair and watch the bees and butterflies do their thing.  AND THEY DID IT ALL THEMSELVES! WOW!!  This is not the work of a landscape specialist, it’s just them and their marvelous brains (more exclamation points – can’t help it – I’m just so excited for them)!  They work hard but they also work smart.  They deserve this Kudos!

I love my friends

IT’S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN, ARE YOU LOSING IT?

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I find it funny how sometimes I don’t even have to look at a calendar to know what time of the year it is.  It’s not the flowers or the trees; it’s our peacock.  I know, peacock?  Time of year?  This farm gal has gone off the deep end of a shallow pool – ha ha, not!

When it is very warm or very cold the peacock looks like this:

DSC_0022  DSC_0020

Full, beautiful bunch of tail feathers – definitely something to be proud of (and he is).  F.Y.I., they are very vain birds.  We catch him constantly sitting, staring at his reflection in our windows.  So wrong!

They also make great guard dogs.  Nothing gets close to or in our yards without this monster spouting out (if you have never heard one, go to the Denver Zoo -it’s loaded with them, and they are noisy).  The downside to that is we live next to an interstate highway, and on/off ramp for it, and a railroad track.  If any one of those makes an unusual sound (huge bang from train starting up, jake-brake from a semi trying to slow down, etc.), he squawks off.  During the day I don’t mind, but one a.m., I’m looking for a shoe to throw at him (he perches up in the tree outside my window at night – jerk!)!

Well, all I have to do is look for the tell-tale signs in the yard:

DSC_0003

DSC_0002

DSC_0001

 

 

 

 

 

And I will know EXACTLY what time of year it is…

It’s peacock humiliation time – WOOO HOOO!!

DSC_0006

Notice how even he does not want to show his face when his tail looks like this – LMAO!  All of the feathers will drop off before the temps get much lower.  Then he will start to put on new ones before winter.  In the spring we go through the same process – PEACOCK FEATHERS EVERYWHERE!

We had hundreds of them before the fire (boo hoo, all gone), and I was worried.  Silly me!

p feathers 1-yr 8-16-16

This is what we have collected just this year.  The last two years we just let them fly.  This is the feathers of two molting’s sitting there.  Going to have to get a bigger pot to put them in soon – eeek!

 

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“SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE” – remember the movie? Now this is scary stuff!

/ helbergfarmstories / 4 Comments

OK, now I’m gonna light some people up.  Maybe it is my age; maybe it is my experience, maybe it is just my love of movies?  When I think of the word “Soylent,” I remember a movie from the 70’s with Charlton Heston called Soylent Green (click here if you want to see a trailer-best part!).

Soylent Green movie poster

When it came out in 1973, it was a freaker.  What a great story line, creepy, but great!  Of course, about the same time, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes came out too (see the previous post) which was a really wild freaker movie.   The whole concept of screwing around with food started coming to light.  This, for me, was the first time I started taking an interest in what goes on (or into) with my food.  I was about 15 then, and we grew our own food on the farm.  Some things like sugar, coffee, flour we bought from the store.  But everything that was possible to grow in Wisconsin.  We did and then preserved it for the year to come.  We saved our own seeds, took our own cutting, and knew what we were eating.

Not anymore.  It’s a scary world of food out there now!  Hybrids, GMO’s, can’t save your own seeds because they won’t grow or because you may be stepping on some corporate’s toes.  REALLY??  How did we come to this?

A company has created a food and used the word Soylent in its title.  I don’t know if they are too young to connect with the old movie, or if they just thought this was a really good idea?  Either way, I just don’t know what to make of it.

They sent me a “request to follow” on tumbler.  Before I agree to any requests, I go and take a look at them.  Well, those of you that know me and know about our farming/gardening methods know that we are “natural” promoters.  We like to do things the normal, natural way with our gardens.  Pull our weeds by hand, use companion planting, save our own seeds, use natural pest control measures – no chemicals allowed here!  So for this company to want me to “follow” them is kind of stupid.  They have chosen to follow me, I’m sure, for marketing reasons.  Trying to tap into a bigger audience.  However, I am thinking that they did not read my fine print (which is actually normal size and ALLL over the place) on my/our decision to be natural in our methods.

They are pushing “Soylent” as a way to feed more people (hmm??).  How about if we teach more people how to grow their own?  Give a man a fish, he eats for a day, kind of thing.

scared fishNow, I’m all for live and let live; this is why I do not usually talk about this type of stuff (along with politics or religion), but they contacted me first.  So, they gave me the opportunity to dig into them (something I love doing – research!!).  They have some good products listed on the back of their bag:

soylent powder

HOWEVER, soy is one of their key ingredients.  As much as I love tofu, I also know that a majority of the crops are now grown using GMO seeds (Go here and check out the info for yourselves!).    So I either do not eat it or find something that is organically grown (even this I have issues with, but that’s another story).

So, unless there is some type of zombie apocalypse and I have no other choice to feed my family, I will not eat people, GMO’s, clones or any other type of un-natural type foods.

  • I will dig in my weedy dirt
  • Create my own compost to throw on my weedy dirt
  • Save my own seeds
  • Grow my own food
  • Process it in as many ways as possible to preserve the freshness
  • And enjoy the fruits of all my hard labor.

I also choose to do the following:

  • Share with my family
  • Share with our friends.
  • Teach others to grow this way
  • Help those that want to learn this method.
  • Encourage more to grow naturally

If you want to follow me, friend me, pin me and request me to do it back; you better have your ducks in a row because I will be digging!

ducks in a row

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ALRIGHT, JUST WHERE DID THESE COME FROM?

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We get a ton of unusual things that happen here on our little farm.  The floods brought up odd looking snakes, beavers, opossum and who know what else has flowed down our way that is hiding yet in the field (we only have about 20 acres).
Every year has brought new surprises.  This year has brought a load of rain.  With the temps we have had, everything should be all dried out by now (that is the ones that are not man irrigated), they are not.  Here is one example of our odd summer season:

8 1 guess we are wet

From far away they just look like little white bumps in our field behind the chickens.  Look again:

8-1 mucho mushrooms

THESE MONSTERS ARE HUGE! (My foot is a women’s size 9)

8-1 size of our shrooms

There are only 4 or 5 of them out there, but the size is what shook my world.  HUGE is putting it mildly.  The sad part is that they are not edible – boo hoo!!  Especially since we love shrooms and put them in everything!  Fresh in a salad, fried loaded on a good steak, mixed with eggs for an outstanding omelet (ok, making myself really hungry now – hee hee), or one of several other goodies.  They just compliment so nicely.

We are lucky, though.  We have an outstanding mushroom farm not too far from us.  They grow several types, and THEY ARE EXCELLENT!  When we go there, we purchase bags and bags of them.  Most of them come home and get dehydrated, but several cups of them get fried up – yummm!

Ok, now I’ve done it!  Gonna have to take a trip there this weekend and get some more.  Since we have a side of beef coming in about a month for the freezer, better have some shrooms ready for it!

sidabeef

(Sorry Vegetarians, but I do love my meat with my veggies!)

QUOTE CHALLENGE DAY 2 – GROW OR DIE.

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Grow or Die – this may sound a bit harsh, but it is what we live by on the farm.  Obtained it from our parents when we were kids growing up on an 80-acre farm in Wisconsin.  If any of you have been lengthy gardeners and/or farmers you may understand this.

“GROW OR DIE!”

4-25-16 onion plot

 

Now, the thing you have to realize on this is, that we say it with a very firm voice to everything on the farm!  There is no time or room for pleasantries, politeness, or pampering (although the last one wins out on occasion).

The funny thing about it – IT WORKS!?!

We have found that if you try to plant something and use too much T.L.C. – it fails.  Transplanting, seed starting, trimming – all of it gets attacked and told to either “Grow or Die!”  We don’t have time to fiddle around with “maybe I will, maybe I won’t” attitudes around here. (yes, I am LMAO while typing this, just cuz it’s true!)

(FYI – to add to your humor consideration, the pic above was my beautiful onion plot after I spent a  whole, hot day laying down newspaper, dragging over tons of our homemade compost and sticking my bulbs into it with appropriate spacing.  By the very next morning, the guineas and chickens had torn it to shreds.  LIFE LESSON # 5BILLION: Either fence it off well or put it in the greenhouse – duh! LMAO – they died – lol)

 

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…AND GOD SAID, “LET THERE BE LIGHT…oh I was just kidding!”

/ helbergfarmstories / 3 Comments

There are very few things in life that scare me. Severe, sneaky storms are one. I am thinking that when God said “Let there be light,” he was looking at one nasty monster! This is how it goes…
It’s a nice warm summer day. A gentle cooling breeze is blowing. The sky is a beautiful color blue with a dotting of clouds. The birds are flying and singing all over the place. A butterfly gently floats from flower to flower competing with the bees. Then it begins.
The clouds start to thicken. The breeze picks up to a bluster. The blue sky is now only viewed slightly on the far east side of the sky. The clouds start to turn from fluffy white to Halloween shades of gray. The insects disappear (how do they know?).
The wind has now grown into a mighty whip, snapping off small branches and peeling back any loose matter on or around buildings. They sky now almost black with the fierce clouds swirling in all directions. The birds are fighting hard to find shelter from what, they know, is coming.
Then, suddenly everything stops…you look, you listen, you do NOT breathe. In the distance, you can see it coming. There is now a sheet flowing from the black clouds to the ground and its heading right for you. You run to shut down any non-essential power spots. Chase all the critters you can round up into the barns. Cover as many plants as you can with what used old sheets you have in case this monster is carrying hail with it.
Deathly quiet! Ping, ping, ping…a few raindrops on the metal roof. Pinga da pinga da ping ping ping – bigger rain drops and more of them. Now the gathering beast is close enough you can hear it roar. It sounds like a cross between a train racing down the tracks and a scraper on a winter windshield, and you can see it coming right for you.
The challenge begins. Did I get it all turned off? Is everything as protected and covered as possible? Did I forget anything? Do I still have time to tie down one more thing? The answer to all of these is usually no because it’s too late to do anything if you want to.
Now all you can do is sit and watch and pray.
The monster is here!

monster storm

So far, no hail – you finally breathe a bit.  The winds pick up, and the empty bucket you left by the pump starts rolling across the driveway – dang, ya knew you forgot something!

Since it is just a heavy windy rain, you start watching the clouds.  Which way are they moving? Is there an end in sight yet?  Are they bunching up anywhere?  Are there any white streaks (sure sign of some dangerous heavy hail)?   Then everything stops!

No wind.  No rain.  No birds. No sounds at all.  Once again you are looking up (praying a bit harder now), “Please no twister, please no twister!”  You begin repeating this over and over again as you watch the clouds steadily sucking together into one spot in the sky.  Are they swirling in a circle?  You watch.  You wait.  You listen.  Then…suddenly…just as fast as it started up…a glistening ray of light breaks through the black mess.  Let there be light!

let there be light sky pic

My sisters and I survived a very close encounter with a tornado when we were all very young.  Took out the machine shop, the back end of the garden, our tree house, and a few other areas, but missed our home.  We were only about 20 feet from the back door (where stupid me was watching it take out the tree house till my older sister dragged me to the basement spouting some not-so-nice words-lol) to the tree house.  I have been fascinated by them ever since.  I can relate to the movie Twister.

The funniest part – I love a good storm!  A steady rain puts me to sleep in a heartbeat.  The clouds are a never-ending display of life and movement.  And, if lucky enough, a booming thunder makes me jump a foot to prove I am still alive (lol – sick I know).  The only part the really creeps me (other than the twister) is the lightening.

gentle rain

I love watching, what we call, heat lightening.  It’s the kind that just flashes up in the clouds – beautiful!  The other kind I only like to watch from a distance.  I have seen it strike straight down and split a tree, knock out a transformer box (no, not the Alien Robot Transformer, the kind that supplies electric to a specific area.), and kill a cow.  I hate driving in them too.  Huge fear of it hitting my metal car and I get fried.  (Big push for wearing rubber sneakers right now! Hee hee)  I know this fear is silly, but a couple more people in Colorado recently died (idiots on a golf course – AGAIN – you would think they would learn… Lightening storm-head for shelter! Duh).

lightening

Oh, and we get double and triple rainbows out here – woo hoo (didn’t in WI).

double rainbow

 

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