New Look of the Neighborhood

This is a video of how it looks now as you drive down our street. In case you didn't see it before, I can assure you it looks a lot different now.

Roofers Are Here!

This is our last big pile of debris.


Kolin by the big pile.

Kaden inside the track-hoe's bucket.

In other news, the roofing crew started today. There were 10 or more guys all over the roof, all doing different jobs. Some tearing shingles off, some patching holes, some sawing holes, some laying shingles, some removing the no-slope and some delivering materials from the ground to the roof. I took them all some cold bottled water. They worked hard today. Maybe tomorrow I'll get a picture of them working. Getting a new roof on is the first step to fixing the house. Unless we stop the water from coming in there's no use in anyone working on the inside of the house. So we are happy they are here.

Demolition Day

The boys and I had a good time watching the track-hoe tear down and load the neighbors house into dump trucks. We just sat in the driveway with snacks and sunscreen.

More pictures of damage

Board in the roof, Reconstruction guy said he pulled 6 boards out of the roof, some had gone all the way through and had landed inside the house.

Our new view, if you blow this picture up you can really see the devastation.






Cleanup trucks in a line down the street being loaded one after the other with debris.


A tree in our front yard covered with insulation from someone else's home.

Neighbors

Unfortunately, our neighbors didn't fair as well.

This is Linda's house next door. Linda was home but had left her bedroom (that was destroyed) to go to the bathroom. Talk about a good time to go!

And this is the house next to her.

No one was home at the other house.

This house is not on our street but I thought it was amazing that the tornado just cut a hole right through the middle of the house. There were no serious injuries in our neighborhood.

Tornado-inital photos, April 10, 2009

On April 10th, Good Friday, an F4 tornado half a mile wide traveled 23 miles through Murfreesboro. Unfortunately we were in it's path. Kandy and the boys were home and took shelter in a kitchen pantry that sits underneath the staircase. The storm came in through the front windows and out through the kitchen. It was truly the grace of God that Kandy even knew it was even headed our way, but that's a whole nother story. The barn and everything in it is completely gone, not one board was left behind. All 18 goats and 1 steer managed to survive. We have even seen one of the barn cats. These are some of the initial photos, taken within an hour of the storm as a seperate tornado was hitting only a couple miles away. They aren't sure how many different tornadoes there were, 3 or 4 is what I'm hearing. This first picture is our house. You can see the broken windows, twisted blinds, torn off chimney and missing pieces of roof.

These are the trees from our neighbors house that fell towards our house, on top of a hog shelter that came up from the field below.

This is a large board that was driven though a barn stall rubber mat.


If you've seen our house before you remember the two huge poplars that were in the front yard, this is what is left of them, the rest is on top of the neighbors car and in her garage. It's hard to see, but if you look hard you can see soffet hanging down on the right side of the porch and one of the porch spindles is gone along with the gutters and down spouts.

This is the kitchen pantry where Kandy, Kolin and Kaden rode out the storm. We huddled in the bottom with blankets. You can see the debris all over the floor. And if you look hard to the right you can see a sagging window treatment and window.

Saturday Cleanup 4/18/09

We had a big day of cleanup today, about 20 people mostly from church came out to help. Picked up rocks, shingles, insulation, and made piles of limbs and logs. Had 3 chainsaws running all day cutting trees off the fence. Another chore was taking down more of the fence. We are trying to get the wire from the fences out of the way so a bulldozer can come in and pile up the trees, then we'll burn, push the pile together again and burn again, until it's gone. We're hoping we get classified as a federal disaster area because if we do then FEMA and the NRCS should be able to help out back there with all the trees. Insurance only covers $1000 worth of tree removal. Our tree'd pasture took a direct hit. We have one bid for $7500. We haven't even been to the back of the property yet, can't get there, too much mess in the way.

Restoration company has pulled up all the carpet in the house and cut out all the ceilings that had water damage, leaving their own trail of wall nicks and broken crown molding. Hoping the roofers start working soon, they say we're next in line. we'll see. We picked out shingle color (charcoal) yesterday.

Tomorrow is Sunday and we're going to rest. Going to Hendersonville after church for dinner.

Fence Inspectors

We have had some breaches lately to our fence. T-Bone was in the neighbor's back yard the other day when I came home from picking Kolin up from school. I was content to watch him graze until Konrad got home, but TBone had other plans and headed towards the road. So I tried to cut him off between the houses. I guess me wrapped in a big pink blanket (because I was nursing the flu) scared him and then he was on the move big time. Luckily the chief, Ted, was on his way home and had heard Konrad check out of the city. Then seeing me pacing the yard in a blanket he stopped to see what was going on. He was kind enough to corral TBone into a secure place even though he was dressed in a tie and dress shoes. Konrad arrived a couple minutes later.

Then Bugsy and Mudslide broke out of the back pasture. The ladies are just too big of a temptation, they can't stay away. And of course the kids still come and go as they please because most of them are still small enough to crawl through the gate. Oh and then there's Kash. I think he's our craftiest escape artist. Best we can tell he's actually leaping the fence. So Kash is going to have to be chained to his dog house. Bugsy is contained in the pasture with TBone and Mudslide is with the nannies. Not sure how long this configuration will last, we're going to do some fence re-enforcement soon.

So, the boys walked the fence. Everyone got really dirty and Kaden even lost his pants somewhere along the way.

March 17th and it's 82 degrees outside. What a difference 16 days makes!

Today I found a surprise in the field. I went to get the truck so the boys and I could go pick up our hardwood flooring and I was greeted by 2 new faces. Cute black and white faces from a white nanny (April) and a light brown and white billy (Bugsy), not sure how that happened, but happy that it did. I'm pretty sure we have a male and a female. So that brings our herd up to 18. We are getting close to weaning the kids born in January. We will then sell the five males and possibly a couple of others.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Snow Day

We woke up this morning to four inches of snow. It was beautiful. After a pancake breakfast I got the boys dressed and sent them outside. Before I could get my coveralls on Kaden was crying with a snow covered face from a snow ball that Koin threw. So much for that adventure. I brought everyone back inside, did some stern talking, and some consoling. A little while later I asked if they wanted to try again. So we all got dressed and headed out.

Kolin was having lots of fun, and Kash was going nuts. Kolin and I built a snow man and fed all the animals. T-Bone was enjoying the snow, kicking up his heels. Bugsy and April were snuggled up together in the blue barn. The nannies didn't seem at all phased by the snow, but seeing them against white snow really shows how not white they are.

Konrad's flight comes in a little later this afternoon. I think the roads will be fine and the driveway is pretty slushy so I don't think the snow will pose a problem there.