We knew when we went to bed Thursday night that there was a chance of strong thunderstorms and tornadoes hitting our area Friday morning. And sure enough, we were awakened by the siren on our weather radio alerting us to a line of storms coming our way from the west, with the threat of tornadoes.
When I looked outside, and in that direction, the sky was dark but not terribly so. We got dressed to be ready in case we had to go into our tornado shelter, but fortunately that wasn’t necessary. A short time later the power went out. We got some rain and wind but there really wasn’t much to it. However, other areas of the state did not fare so well, and three people were killed by falling trees as the storm system marched its way across the northern part of Alabama.
The power was out for about eight hours, but our telephones and weather radio kept us updated on what was happening. Our son Travis called a couple of times, telling me that they had power at their place about 15 minutes away, and telling us we were welcome to come over there. I told him that we had spent a lot of time losing power during the six years we lived in Florida. Between that and all of the times we spent dry camping during our 18-plus years as fulltime RVers, we got this. If worse came to worst I could always fire up one or both of our Honda generators.
The weatherman says we’re going to have at least a little bit of winter come back, but you couldn’t tell it around here right now. All of the trees are in bloom and looking beautiful. Now if it would just stop raining. Yeah, I know about how April showers bring May flowers, but the January, February, and March mud has been no fun at all.
Travis is certainly getting ready for spring and summer. While we were at their house the other day he showed us the grow room where he has all kinds of plants starting. When the time is right he will transfer them to his gardens, and to a garden he’s going to help Terry with here at our place.
This is Clyde, who showed up at Travis and Geli’s house a few months ago and moved in, making himself at home. You may remember when I wrote about being attacked by their rooster back in June, Clyde decided to get in on the fun and bite me on the butt. I have always gotten along with dogs, but this one and I have a strained relationship. He growls every time he sees me, but occasionally he will let me pet him, and last week when Travis and Geli were here with Clyde and their little dog Honey, I fed him some cheese and Clyde was willing to lay on his back and let me rub his belly for a while. Of course, five minutes later he was growling at me. If I wanted to be treated this way I’d still be married to my first wife!
While we were prepared for the bad weather and not afraid of it, I did get a good scare the other day when we were in Tuscaloosa and I went into the bathroom of a business and was greeted by these two characters. I’m glad I didn’t have to go worse than I did or I might have had an accident!
In spite of the fact that we didn’t have power yesterday, Terry kept busy sorting out her office and getting things organized while I was able to narrate 2,000 words in my next Tinder Street book. The weather is going to be better today, and hopefully I’ll knock out another chapter or two.
Be sure to enter our latest Free Drawing. This week’s prize is an RV camping journal donated by Barbara House. Barbara makes several variations of these, and they all have pages where you can list the date, weather, where you traveled to and from that day, beginning and ending mileage, campground information including amenities at RV sites, a place for campground reviews, room to record activities, people met along the way, reminders of places to see and things to do the next time you’re in the area, and a page for notes for each day.
To enter, click on this Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name (first and last) in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn Sunday evening. Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed.
Thought For The Day – A winner is just a loser who tried one more time.
Nick Russell
World-Famous, New York Times Best Selling Author, and All-Around Nice Guy!
Nick, I’ve read in your blogs about seeing deer and coyote on your new property but have you seen or heard wild turkeys? They should be gobbling and displaying in your part of the country about now.
Jared, we have not seen any yet, but there are a lot of them around here.