Yesterday morning, my truck was where I’d left it Wednesday after working on the saws. Again the tailgate would serve as a makeshift workbench, this time for re-filling the dogs’ food canisters from the supply we keep in the shed.
After that it became a resting place, a Country couch from which I surveyed the scene to the south. I snapped a few photos.
That image can’t convey what l took in with my senses — the comforting presence of the ridge, swaying cedars and whispering wind, birdsong.
The early objective was to knock out whatever chores needed doing and, in advance of heavy weather bearing down on us for the afternoon and evening, to batten down hatches that needed battening.
It didn’t involve anything we hadn’t done before. Countless times while on the road, we found ourselves planted in a watch or a warning and executed the same drill. Those preps never guarantee that we’ll come out the other side of a weather event unscathed, but we’ve thought it through. And we’ve had plenty of practice.
Thunder was rumbling by 3:30pm, right about the time Deb got Home from work. The skies matched what we saw on radar — not imminently threatening to the south and southwest, much more ominous to the west and northwest.
We tucked our vehicles into the woods, nosing the Jeep toward the fire pit and pulling the truck up to the shed. Lacking a garage or a carport, we figured that might offer a small measure of protection.
Storms began hitting The Mountain shortly before 5pm, much earlier than had been predicted. We got high winds, heavy rain, lots of lightning and thunder and, toward the end of the onslaught, five minutes of small hail. Surprisingly, the area wasn’t placed under a tornado watch.
The storms moderated into a steady rain. It remained windy. Electric power flickered several times but never went out for more than a few seconds.
To pass the time, and to keep tabs on the weather and its effects, we surfed social media and had the Ryan Hall Y’all live stream up on the TV. We got a video call from friends in south-central Oklahoma, who shared a prairie sunset from their new homestead.
The back side of the weather system rolled through after dark — more high winds, hours of downpours, and thunder that rocked The Mountain like an earthquake. At one point we had to retrieve, right and re-secure our soft shed before it blew away completely.
Considering that we’d been in the SPC’s forecast bullseye for strong tornadoes, baseball-sized hail and 80mph winds, however, we know we got lucky. What damage we did suffer was slight.
Others weren’t so fortunate.
Close to Home, Yellville didn’t take much of a hit. Flippin did. A few miles north of The Mountain, straight-line winds took down trees and utility poles, leaving thousands without power. Some of the main roads were impassable. Today, schools and city offices are closed.
Arkansas was one of four states that saw powerful tornadoes last night. The twister touching down closest to us was in Hot Springs Village, almost four hours south of here.
The worst, however, was hundreds of miles away, and in a place we know well. Ohio wasn’t expecting to see much more than a little rain and thunder. What it got was devastating — multiple tornadoes, structures destroyed, lives lost.
We watched all that unfold via Ryan Hall’s live stream. It put our own concerns into perspective.
Things definitely were rollicking here, no doubt about that — Deb said this morning that those ten hours brought the worst weather she’s ever been through, with the exception of hurricanes. We got the fiercest winds we’ve felt since moving to The Mountain, and perhaps the heaviest rain.
But today we’re fine.
It was two years ago today that we left Ozarkansas for Ohio. Four months later, we came Home for good. It seemed like an eternity.
Friday arrived damp, gray and cool, a northerly breeze making it downright chilly. Our world looks and feels like it’s been pressure-washed, which I guess it was.
Oak trees, which we have in abundance on The Mountain, don’t all shed their leaves in the fall. Many of them exhibit a characteristic called marcescence, meaning that they hold on to at least some of their brown leaves ’til spring’s new growth pushes them off.
This morning, thanks to yesterday’s storms, almost all of those dead oak leaves are on the ground. I hadn’t expected the difference to be so striking, but it is. Our views of the valley are, for now, even clearer than before.
It’s the proverbial silver lining. Neither Deb nor I is looking forward to another round of weather like that (and there will be many more), but we found joy on this side of the storms.
There’s a lesson in there somewhere.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable
#LetsGoBrandon #FJB