A couple weeks ago we had a bit of "excitement" around here, but I'm just getting around to blogging about it. Here's the story:
Just before lunch one day, Collin and I were busy "dueling" in the kitchen with him in timeout in front of our basement door. It started to storm outside and I very quickly noticed hail beginning to bounce around outside. I decided to play it safe and told him to come around the corner into the living room so that we were out of range of the kitchen window (west side of the house). Well, sure enough a few minutes later I here it shatter sending glass and hail across the kitchen floor. Collin (Mr. 2000 questions) of course then asks if the window is broken and I very matter of factly tell him "Yes, it is", as if it is a very normal thing :). I tell him to stay put and go and grab Gabriel out of the bassinet in the dining room. When I return we move a bit further into the living room. Glass and hail continue to fly through the window and now a few pieces are starting to bounce into the living room, so I decide the staircase might be a bit safer. We wait out the remaining moments there listening to glass shattering both up and downstairs (and me just praying there isn't a tornado. I thought about going to the basement, but that would involve going into the kitchen--where there was glass flying everywhere.) Gabe peeked his eyes for only a moment, then back to sleep. Collin was definitely concerned throughout, but really only cried a bit near the end in the stairway because his blanky was out in the living room. When we came out, there was glass, hail, and leaves everywhere (up and downstairs) and the lawn was white with hail. It was amazing. We ended up having all 5 west windows broken out (storms and inside windows). Thankfully 3 of the 5 were not in carpeted rooms and the other two are a spare bedroom and the porch. So what do you do when this happens? Get shoes/boots on everyone and make PB&J of course ;)
We had glass scattered in the kitchen, dining room (clear to the east wall!), corner of the living room, both bathrooms, spare bedroom, and porch. I even found a hailstone on the east wall of Collin's room (across the hall from the spare room). Thankfully, by the time I got Collin put to bed and JUST started cleaning up the glass, some friends came to help out. Several families came to help get everything cleaned up before dinner! (It would have taken DAYS!) The yard was covered in leaves (looked like fall, but green). The garden was also destroyed, but we have had plenty of fresh vegetables due to many VERY GENEROUS church members!
Thankfully no one was hurt, but in the neighborhood pretty much all west windows were broken out with the exception of the church which only had one storm broken. Several vehicles were damaged as well with broken windows and dents. The sadest part of course has been the crop damage. We have had a great year as far as crops getting much more rain than is usual for these parts, so having fields destroyed was quite a blow. Many of these farmers have had drought issues the last few years and so were looking to have a "come back" year, but unfortunately several fields were just destroyed. Most farmers have insurance, but only to cover what they have into it, so it is another year without profit. So it's like working all season, and not getting a paycheck. There also were many pheasants killed and since farmers here often supplement their income with "hunting industry" that hurts as well. Some talked of fields smelling due to the number of dead birds. One farmer even found a dead deer due to the storm.
The photos I took didn't turn out very well, but I was able to get some from a friend. Twila Dykstra is a photographer who is in the church and also came to help with the cleanup. She was nice enough to share her photos with us. (click to enlarge)
Chipped siding, broken storm and window, shredded blinds (didn't show well, but looked quite funny from the inside), dented trim, and leaves "plastered" against the house.
The adjuster was here a couple weeks ago and estimated over $77,000 worth of damage to the church and parsonage! This week they came out to measure for all new windows on the west side of the parsonage. And today an old storm was put onto our kitchen window so we don't have plywood there anymore.
So that's the excitement around here! Enough for the season if you ask me!
