Rain and Tornadoes

Yesterday morning I signed up for phone and internet service to the machine shed. Wait 'til you see the phone book!


See that book by the phone? It's the phone book. Covers all dozen or so towns. One section is listed by town, another section is an alphabetical list of all customer, other sections include yellow pages and listings of other towns, big and small, in the area.

Notice the lamp? It is a childhood memory from Grandma's house that became a model for a project in art class. I washed it, installed new hardware and a shade and put it to good use.



Just one year ago http://www.valleynewslive.com/ frequently interrupted programming to give the latest updates on the severe weather and tornadoes passing through this area (see blog posts from one year ago).

Last night began as a repeat of last year. Fortunately for me, the most severe storms stayed in ND this year, sending rain across the border but nothing else that I have seen.

And rain we got! So, as the idiom goes, "Can 't dance, too wet to plow," I may as well go visiting.

I'm back!

Unlike last year, I do not have a digital camera so pictures will need to wait until I get the film developed.













The finished machine shed. I hadn't had time to cut the grass and weeds when I took these pictures. Notice my shiny new truck--it had rained, and the truck had worked.

A close-up of the not-so-shiny-new truck...
...after doing what 4X4 pickups are made to do.


Also unlike last year, the birds in my way this year are not tiny, chirpy, cute little things that flit and flutter as they take off...these two rattled the building as they head for the open window. The flap of their wings rumble not unlike the last shuttle taking off for the ISS. And they are not on the engine of my tractor--they are in the upstairs of the house, the very house I had planned to take down this summer.

And they don't use 'cute' to convince me to leave them alone...they use intimidation and fear. Fear that they will pick me up and carry me away if I come near the house, their house.

And they won the first round: I took a different route to get what I wanted. I had to go into another building that will be moved and move tools to my new shed. I step out of the building and through the top step of a four-step platform. As I go tumbling to the ground my arms instinctively rid themselves of all tools and sharp objects that had sneakily been retrieved under the watchful eye of our 'winged house guests'. As I go tumbling, does my mind think about not having cell-phone reception? No! Does it think about that not an issue because the phone is in the truck and how would I get to the truck? No! It thinks about how the grass needs cutting!

I believe the birds circled overhead until I had a chance to do an inventory of body parts and limp off to the truck. Maybe I won the battle: They left and I haven't seen them since.

Knee packed in ice brought the swelling down, time for bed.