Devonviolet Acres

Ahhhhhhhhh! Too cute!

I'm sure you're thrilled to finally be done with the burn pile. Your dogs look great, as always. Same with the chickens Thanks for sharing!

I love burn piles, it is so satisfying to get that big pile GONE! That was a neat shot of the flying chicken!!

was actually able to load a picture of your baby girl. her name is falina and she is a brat. if you agree her price is that you pass on a doe kid to someone else who wants to be more self stainable . doesn't have to be the first one or even the second one but when you feel the time is right. glad youall are doing well and have missed the worst of the storms.

WOW! Thank you so much! That's awesome!

I'm going to PM you, for more info!

Thank you @Devonviolet !!!!!!!

We had a tornado-thunderstorm-lightening-flash flood-storm this afternoon and evening. My sister and her friend had come for the Canton First Monday, over 400 acres of flea market, and they were stormed on all day. We met them in Lindale to eat at a Mexican restaurant. Our DD and her family were coming too, but because of tornado warnings, they went to the school our DSIL teaches at and hunkered down in a closet. Sirens were going off, the sky was black, the rain was sideways, it got real bad. Devonviolet was watching the weather and texting me the latest. The manager of the restaurant was watching the weather too and asked everyone to go into the kitchen. which of course we all did. After about 15-20 minutes, it cleared up enough that people went back to their tables, some left to go home.

We were texting and calling our neighbors. One neighbor, Sharon was in the closet of her house. Another neighbor had her kids in a closet, her husband was at work and he told her to get out of the house. She did, but ran off the road on what Devonviolet will recognize as the Old Mineola Highway. She and her kids ran to a house in the height of the storm, no one answered the door, neither did the next house, but the 3rd house, someone answered and let them in. Her husband was frantic, left work, found her, got her car out of the ditch and they got back home safely. That took a couple of hours.

While we were in the restaurant kitchen, Devonviolet texted me to say that it looked like the tornado activity was right on top of our farm. We headed toward home not knowing if we had a home to go home to. But we told my sister, if our house is gone, at least we weren't in it. In the middle of town was an utterly destroyed building, the building next to it was untouched. The first road we tried was blocked. We sat there for about 20 minutes, on the Old Mineola Highway, in a long line of cars. The road is narrow but my husband was able to jockey our truck back and forth to get it turned around. We went back to town and went out Farm Road 16. Trees were down all along the way, many blocking a lane. We even drove under a tree that didn't fall all the way down, barely clearing the cab of the truck, praying it wouldn't fall on us.

We turned off the Farm Road, onto a county road. The one we normally went home on had water over the road in a couple of places. Another neighbor had made it home ahead of us and he told us to take another road and go around the long way. It had water over it too, but we were able to drive across it.

Home never looked so good! No damage, animals all ok. God is good. We were grateful. Power was off, so we lit the kerosene lamps. I have 56 baby chicks in a brooder on the porch and they were clumped up. I changed shirts to go catch them all, planning to put them in a cardboard box and bring them in the house, when the power came back on.

Thank you Devonviolet for keeping us informed on what the storm was doing! Haha, that's what we were doing for you and your husband just a few weeks ago! There was a very sweet lady in the restaurant who heard us talking, I read your texts to our group at the table. She was worried about getting home. I told her what your texts said and we figured out that she could leave and go home.

I really need to saddle up Marigold (my tractor) and start digging a storm shelter........

Just heard from our neighbor, Jimmy. His wife was the one who ran off the road. He was in the same line of traffic on the Old Mineola Highway that we were. But he was at the front of the line and working with other men trying to clear trees off the road. His wife was somewhere on the other side of the blocked road. He will be working all night. He is in refrigeration and there are several grocery stores in several towns and 3 counties with problems.

WOW! What a story @Baymule! I only knew my part of it. I hadn't heard, "The rest of the story", as Paul Harvey used to say.

We didn't get the high winds y'all got Baymule. But we have had our share of thunder boomers & rain since around 1:00 Friday afternoon (it's 12:30AM right now).

As of right now we got 2-1/2" of rain. That's a total of 24-1/2" this year so far!

Yesterday, one of our two water totes, (that are connected to the gutters) had 200 gallons of rainwater in it. Each tote holds 275 gallons.

DH had moved the pipe, from the first tote, to the 2nd one. Yesterday, it had 125 gallons (there are markings on the totes for number of gallons).

Tonight the 2nd tote filled to the very top! DH went out & moved the pipe, back to the top of the 1st tote - to finish filling that one.

I just checked that one & we have about 5" of room, at the top & that tote will be full! That's a total if 550 gallons of water in addition to the 330 gallons we collected in the 6 - 55 gallon barrels we have on the other side of the house.

Our power went out at 11:00 PM, in the midst of the thunder & lightening, of the storm. We left the house closed up, so rain wouldn't come in the windows. Outside temp was 64° & humidity was 95%. Inside temp was 74°with 79% humidity. UGH!

By midnight, the storm had died down, so we got ready for bed. I was just dripping, from being so hot. As I lay in bed, I was miserable. It seemed like there was no air to breathe. So, We decided the lower temp & high humidity, from outside, was better than no air & lower humidity, inside. So we opened the windows, for fresh air. At least now, we have a breeze moving the air around & the temp is bearable!

So happy everyone's safe from the big tornados.

Very glad you made it through the storms ok!