Once again I am remiss about keeping my blog up to date. This time I will take a break from Dear Jane® and bring you up to date on what has been happening with me. I have not been sewing and I have not been doing any family history research, not from lack of wanting or trying. But because on the morning of April 11, 2011 we had an EF-1 tornado go through our area-winds up to 110 mph. It came roaring through, literally, just before 2:30 a.m. The power went out, I looked out a north window and all I could see was gray, nothing else. It sounded like hail was hitting the house. Actually Stan had not come to bed yet, he was waiting up for it, I guess. He was just shutting the patio doors and he said he had heard that sound before; they had had a twister come through their valley in 1973 in southeastern Oklahoma. The sound he heard was that of a freight train. We just rode it out: what else could we do? We did not go back to bed, but I did doze on the couch about 5 a.m.
When light dawned this is what we saw…
This was our biggest problem. Three good-sized trees (huge) or branches perched precariously over our propane tank. We also had the electric supply pulled from the house and some shingles pulled off the house. But all of our neighbors have holes in their roofs. Our major damage was to our mature oak grove. One of the main reasons we bought this old ranch-style house.
Take a closer look to our tree damage.
This is the tops of what was was overhanging the propane tank and power supply pole, now in our neighbor’s drive.
This is what is left (nothing) of a row 45 year old row of cedars that separated the two properties. These are owned by our neighbor, who just got a divorce. We are curious to see if she will get them cleaned up. Or if she will wait on us to do it. One is overhanging and resting on our outbuilding.
And this is (was) a huge, forked post oak towards the end of those cedars but on us. One side was forked, which is the half which is still standing but the top is out of the part that is standing. And the larger fork is on the ground on my neighbor. She has a huge tree just a little further back that is still standing but the top is out. This was one ferocious storm. Just look what it did to my neighbor’s on the other side oak in their back pasture.
That post oak was huge, and it busted it right off at the ground at the root line. Two people could not reach around this tree and the limbs almost reached the ground.
As soon as I saw this one below, I knew it was a tornado. Notice all the green grass and leaves on the window.
This next one is a dangerous situation and you might have to look hard to see it. This tree was a beautiful red oak, straight grained and tall. It is now split almost to the ground, right in half. This one will have to be professionally removed-if the wind doesn’t take it first.
It’s to the left of center, the right half curving to the right. Next picture is a close up view, you won’t miss it.
We now don’t work around this area because of the fear of it falling or barber-chairing with us around. There is also another good sized top hung up on small branch, much smaller than the top. So we just play it safe.
These next two are before and after shots. This is what it looked like before…nest up in the air.
And now cut up, not necessarily cleaned up. There is a lot of wood piled up around here and on the rest of the place. We already had our wood cut for this winter this year. I have stacked 4 more and there are 8 piles in the yard to be stacked and we are not done yet.
One more set of before and after shots.
Three trees here to clean up. One is from a different neighbor who has done nothing to clean up and still has one uprooted leaning over us which we will not do anything with -yet. 
More wood, more brush. If the wind would quit blowing, we would burn. Maybe this week.
So as you can see, we have kept busy the last 3 weeks trying to clean this mess up. It not easy, just the thought of doing this got us down. But we take it a little bit each day and we make progress. It definitely looks better today than it did 3 weeks ago. Three weeks ago it looked like a thinning operation had been through here.
My heart goes out to those in the southeast. Just going through this small one is something I would not like to go through again. And even though there was plenty of damage and one was written off, everyone around here is fine. We just lost things, which can be replaced. So I count my blessings and say a prayer for all those affected elsewhere.
To make this a little quilt related, I did start sewing strips together for a pattern of Jinny Beyer’s that is free on RJR’s website. It is called DaVinci. You can download the pattern here. Look for red and black optical illusion. I am making mine in green and black.
I also got the summer catalog from Hancock's of Paducah and in it I noticed the new line of Dear Jane® fabrics. This will be the second line that Brenda Papadakis has designed for Windham fabrics from the quilt. BUT according to this page, at Windham, these fabrics won’t be available until July 1st. How many can you find that go to original blocks? I only found 3 and one of those was off color-wise.
The other highlight of my tornado time has been talking with a second cousin once removed. My second great grandmother and his grandfather were siblings. The Web is a great thing. This man is my mother’s age and he now is a beekeeper. He also fishes Alaska once a year.
That’s it from my little corner of the world. Everyone stay safe.
Sew Having Fun,
Sarah
