Hurricane Ike... from the hill

All was not bad with Ike, for us. He did remind me of some things to be thankful for: ELECTRICITY, for one. We just got our electricity back yesterday evening. All I can say is, wow, things had to of been difficult in the wagon-wheel days, especially if you had children ~ I cannot even imagine.
Below are some various pictures taken before, during, and after Ike.

Be sure and click on the pics to see their full size.

The sky pics are especially amazing when viewed full size.

While putting up boards, a 'little someone' reminded us that life is too short to not stop and dance on a good wood floor.


More windows boarded...


At 2 y/o old, Emma was quite helpful in picking up all of our 'garden art' (animal figures, etc. in the rock border) so they wouldn't become projectiles in the wind.


Daddy showing some musskulls.


Our dining room all boarded up & dark.


All three of these sky shots were taken within a total period of about 5-10 minutes. The sky was changing quickly and it was windy at this point. Ike blew in in the middle of the night. The lighting was amazing in the sky with different cloud layers having quite distinct colors.

Our kitchen window boarded up... but wait, there's a story here.

You see, I'm used to seeing a whole lot out this window; our back yard to our barn, and part of the pasture and more. Well, I asked my dear other half to leave the light on that is attached to the barn and that shines out a bit into the pasture~ so I could look out our door (that wasn't boarded) and see outside during the storm.

Sooo, that evening when all is boarded up and we are settling in and the winds have started kicking up, I go into the kitchen to do something at the sink... I look up to see darkness out the window and turn to my husband and say, "Hey, I asked you to leave the barn light on". He looked at me flatly while at the same it dawned on me and I said a short, "Oh yeah"... with a smile on my face, of course.

(duhhh).

It was 1:55 AM and Ike just started really to kick in. These two items below helped;
~water
~tums
and the weather station, that tells wind speed too, made things more interesting (you can see half of it in the pic).


AFTER Ike...






You can see part of the building's siding (on the left) in the tree.
This was a HUGE Pecan~ pics don't do its size justice.










Still windy and rainy, but Ike was gone and boards were coming off. After being cooped up in a dark house, EVERYone wanted to be outside, despite the conditions.

Note in the above pic: in the back left is our windmill. Kint took the fan-head off but I had made mention of wanting to know wind direction... he disappeared in the shop after boarding everything up. I went in to find that he had made a makeshift tail to go on the windmill post.
It didn't come off! ...and we could watch the direction through late that night and early the next morning.

Well, that was Ike, in our nutshell. He, obviously, proved more devastating for those in more vulnerable areas. You just cannot mess with Mother Nature... all the above damage occurred with winds just under 60 mph (according to our weather station... I think it's correct). We never received "hurricane force winds"... and I wouldn't want to.