So this morning I lazily rolled out of bed at the insistence of my rugrats, who scamper into my room before daylight each day. I pulled on my pink velour jogging suit, (that I never jog in) and stumbled to the kitchen in anticipation of a lovely cup of coffee. My trusty Keurig was doing it's thing so I happened to gaze out the kitchen window while I waited for my cup to fill. And then the day got interesting....
All night last night the wind blew hard enough to literally shake the house. It sounded as though something of substance was repeatedly beating on the house, not just gusts of air. It was so loud I couldn't sleep very well at all and I was amazed the kids had slept okay. But we've had wicked winds before so I wasn't exactly worried or anything.
My view out the kitchen window showed me the door to the sheep shed had blown open and let my little prairie maggots escape their corral. I had that door wired shut with two strands of baling wire around the door handle! So I called Prairie Granny to come over and watch the rugrats so I could go chase sheep. I tore down to the corral in my pickup, jumped out and the wind caught my door so hard it now needs some repairs. The force of the wind seemed to be sucking more air from my lungs than I could put back in! Just to walk around, I was leaning into the wind like you'd see in an old cartoon. The sheep were running back and forth and around, in between the horses and such. My big ol' dog wasn't much help either. She was having a little too much fun and not listening to me what-so-ever! Thankfully, Miss Ivy the birthday goat saved the day. She came running up to me like, "Mom! Save me!" So I caught her up and tied her inside the sheep corral. Sort of hoping they would "follow the leader". Know what I mean?
I threw some hay in the feeder and went to investigate the broken shed door. Sure enough those wires had snapped in the wind and the wood holding the latch had splintered and broken off. I had to "Jerry rig" that door like MacGyver to keep it shut as the wind kept slamming me against the wall of the shed. Finally it looked like it would hold so I went after the sheep. I'm so thankful they were hungry! I tip-toed out around them and they tip-toed right into the corral. Thank the Lord!
As looked around the farm yard I found things blown all to kingdom come. The metal round bale feeder blew over, buckets and tumbleweeds lined the fence lines, the portable net fencing for my chickens was no longer standing. It had pulled right out of the soggy ground at the base of each post. Bales of hay had been blown off the top of the stack. I couldn't even make that one up! How did that happen? I had to feed the calves inside the corral next to the barn so the hay wouldn't blow away before they could eat it! Then of course I came home wearing plenty of hay in my underwear....
I decided a Montana hurricane is when the wind is strong enough to blow down part of your hay stack. I looked up the meaning of "gale force winds" and gale force tops out at 64 miles per hour. That would just be a stiff breeze compared to what we had this morning.... I'm glad to report that for now the winds have calmed down to about 15 miles per hour. I'm looking forward to picking up the pieces in the morning.
Bye for now,
PB
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