Tornadoes and Rain Hit Austin

Central Texas got pounded last night by a supercell storm, which brought tornadoes, lightning, hail, and well-needed rain to the area. Despite the tornadoes and powerful storm, the overall damage was minimal, thank goodness, but in the thick of it, it doesn’t matter — you do your emergency procedures and hope that you and your children are safe. We had tornado sightings within a couple miles of our house — needless to say, the boys played their Nintendos while hanging out in the bathtub during the bad part of the storm.

Getting out this morning, I assessed the damage. The streets and driveway were green from fallen leaves, and I lost a few branches. Just up the road, we saw a whole tree fallen over, and a bent and broken lightpost.

The dog’s wading pool was blown to the back corner of the lot. Either that or our local mischievous Sasquatch hauled it back there.

I’ll get to replace all the thistle in my finch sock experiment — I think the fact that I chose to leave them up there despite the odd clouds in the sky AND water some parched trees earlier in the day AND add some water to the pond to raise the level back up meant that we were destined to get rain. I should have known. But if I hadn’t have done all that, would we have gotten rain? The mandarin orange tree’s leaves showed off their raindrops this morning.

It always amazes me how sturdy the most delicate of flowers can be in the face of hail and pounding rain. Instead of seeing petals all over the ground, I see very happy plants (except for all the fallen leaves on the ground). Austin looks beautifully green this morning. The birds are cheerfully singing and visiting the birdfeeder.

We caught a squirrel hanging from the birdfeeder — he’s determined, to say the least. But the cardinals are thrilled with the feeder. Happy birds make me happy! The hummingbirds have found their feeder, too — I just haven’t managed to get a picture yet! I’ve seen a brown one and a green one with a ruby throat. I’d like to get another feeder, but I’ll wait until I see more than one at a time.

Today’s post ends with a space-age kitty — our son was emptying the dryer and while he dropped off some of the items, Cricket hopped in and snuggled in the remaining clothes. Dangerous spot to hang out in, kitten!