First Tornado Warning of 2008...

Last night on the 10:00 news, the Weather Gypsies were calling for a "SLIGHT" chance of severe weather in the area. They weren't EXPECTING a lot, but were gonna play it safe and say there MIGHT be some.

Long about 12:15, I woke up to intense lightning flashes. I could hear thunder, but it was still far off to the southwest. I got up, closed the window and the front door, and the storm was on us.

I decided to turn on the TV and see if there were any watches or warnings for our area. Sure enough, our county had been issued a Severe Thunderstorm Warning. The radar looked pretty full of reds and yellows behind us, so I told my wife about the warning so she could be ready.

It would figure, a few minutes later a Tornado Warning went up for our county. The Weather Gypsies on TV said it was for the "eastern" part of the county. We are pretty close to being in the center of the county. On radar, it looked to be east of us, but we prepared to "go to ground" anyway. In another minute, or so, the radar DEFINITELY showed it to be past us.

We stayed up for awhile to make sure nothing else developed and decided to go back to bed. This morning, I found out online that the tornado (an EF-1, possibly a 2....) hit a small town about 8 miles east of our town. It tore up the down town a bit, and damaged the High School (and a few homes...), but wasn't near as bad as it could have been.

Our neighbor up the road said he got nearly 3 1/4" of rain. The creek down the road was pretty full, as was the river. We also had part of the road in front of our house wash. It is still drivable, but has a good drop off on the west side.

Today it was cold, damp, and windy, to boot....

Since it wasn't a very good day, I used it to work in out of the wind. I built a wall, door, and roosts in the new chicken house. The side I was working on will be for our free range herd. I hope to get the other side done in the near future. I plan to use it for some "Non-ranging" hens.

I still need to work on stuff "on a budget", but it sure is nice to have a BUNCH of free materials to work with! It really makes things easier when the "lumber yard" is right on your property - and everything is free!

I just need to build some nest boxes and get an "exit" hole cut and I will be ready for birds. I will need to cut windows, but I can do that while they are already moved in. I will probably lock them in the new coop for 2-3 days without letting them out. That way, they will get used to being in this one and not the old one.

I'll get my "Chicken Compound" done -

Sooner or Later....