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Renaissance Mama
Apr. 1, 2006
Spring with a vengeance
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While I am very happy that spring is here, it does come with a mixed bag. The weather is so unpredictable and the spring storms are often very violent.
On Thursday, the weather forcast gave us a pretty good chance of rain and thunderstorms. We very badly need the rain so we had our fingers crossed. I had ordered a load of round bales of hay that should have been delivered last week but he was too busy to get it here.
Of course, the hay guy shows up just as it began to storm. We are madly rushing around with the tractor trying to get those round bales into the barn. As soon as we finished, the rain stopped ,too.
We were standing there admiring the rainbow when my daughter rushed out of the house with my walkie talkie. The power had gone out and my alarm had also gone off. I am an EMT but I do not work for a service. I am just on the local volunteer fire dept as a first responder. My hubby is on the volunteer fire dept and my oldest son is begining. I turned on the radio and we were still standing there talking about the clouds. The radio was chattering about nothing in particular. Being the homeschool mama and a weather spotter on occasion, I began to lecture the hay guy and the kids about the clouds.... "See that dark cloud? That is called an anvil and those are the kind that spawn tornados...."
Suddenly , the weather spotters on the radio began to yell about a tornado and we watched as our cloud changed shapes..... Guess what? My lecture turned out to be a little too well illustrated.
It was well behind us and moving away but heading for friends homes and farms. The spotters on the radio were highly excited and telling just where it was headed. We were able to make a call and get folks to take cover as I shrieked for my kids to hit the cellar. The hay guy jumped in his truck and took off......
The radio alrams went off and all medical personel were activated. I grabbed my clean shoes, my hubby grabbed my EMT bag and we hit the road.
After some heart wrenching moments, there ended up being very few injuries but several home damaged. We got back home and tried to settle down.
Even though our farm got rain, most places north and west of us did not so the land is dry and a tinderbox. Just as we sat down for a sandwich supper. The alram went off again. This time a brush fire north of town. After a couple of hours, Neil dragged back home.
We made it until lunch time yesterday. The alarm went off for an out of control grass fire west of town. Neil took off again. After about an hour of listening to the radio and hearing how big this was, I decided to go to the fire barn. I tool a lunch along just in case i could pass it to Neil. After an hour at the barn, it became apparent that they were running out of water. So I hopped on the tanker truck and rode out. My job was to work on the tanker refilling the small grass fire units so that Neil could man the big hose on "Bertha".
I called my oldest son and told him to go to the fire barn as someone as to be on stand by there in case there is another call. The only other guy available was 76 years old.
After two hours of refilling trucks, we ran out of water and I rode back into refill. It was getting late and I knew that my younger children would be trying to get chores done so I swapped out with another fire fighter and my son went out on another grass unit to help "mop up".
When I got home, my three youngest kids had milked 15 goats, bottle fed about 20 kids, fed 8 finishing floors of hogs ( about 250 hogs per barn), and hand fed the farrowing houses that contain 48 sows with pigs. They were bottle feeding the calves and haying the horses when I drove in. WHAT A GANG! They are getting bonus's in their paychecks this week!
So-- within 24 hours, we had a tornado and 2 fires. We are all praying for rain so that we can have a break!
Tana
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