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Not sure where to begin on this one. Everything was going so nice. Mark had our hay put up, we were preparing does for a flush in September, all of the animals were doing quite well, and Mark was just getting ready to start on a new chicken house for me so my sweet babies can get out of the ghetto into a new duplex when disaster struck. It goes something like this.

It was a great evening, the skies were an amazing shade of peacock blue and I was out taking photos when the winds kicked up and the rain started to come. I went into the house and of course the satellite was out. (if its higher than a ceiling fan grade wind, I swear that dish goes out everytime!) So I checked my trusty iPhone for weather warnings. Only a thunderstorm warning with winds up to 60mph and penny size hail possible. Nothing too bad, right? WRONG! What came was NOT 60mph winds.

Whatever it was (tornado, microburst..etc) came with destructive force I've not seen in my years of living in Oklahoma. I see my bottle babies Gucci and Prada bouncing in their pen unable to get into their shelter as it had blown across the pen, so I told Mark I was going out after them. He informed me that I was not and to help him into his rainsuit. I did and he went after the babies. He caught Prada first and handed her over the fence to me which I then took her into an awaiting playpen. But when he went after Gucci, she was nowhere to be found. At that point, I jumped over the fence and began the search. The winds were insane and branches were laying everywhere. At one point I had to duck into another goat shelter to see where Mark was and if he had found her yet. After we determined she was not in there, the panic hit me and I started jumping fences to try and find my girl and check on my other animals. Everyone was ok, but no sign of Gucci. By then, the winds had died down, and the rain was lighter so I got out my ATV and turned on the light because it was getting much darker and I knew she had to be found as she cant cry like a normal goat. (she makes a sound that resembles someone making a slight cough.) In the search, I managed to run over a downed powerline at which point Mark yells at me to watch what Im doing. After what seems like forever, he finds her. She was on the other side of the fence from her pen with a downed tree on top of her. She wasn't hurt but just shaken up a bit and sounded like she had a ton of water in her lungs. After putting her back with her sister and giving them a good towel dry, I knew they would both be ok when they ducked their head into the feed bowl and ate like the little piglets they are. After getting the animals secure it was time to check out the property. Marks shop where he houses his boat, and all of his fishing equipment and our valuables was missing half of the roof. The horsebarn was also missing half a roof and our winter hay was drenched. The haybarn was completely demolished. By that I mean concrete posts and all ripped from the earth and scattered across our property and on the road adjacent to our property. Mark starts up his tractor to go push our barn off the road to allow service vehicles to access it. We then start taking pics inside his shop and get generators going for the house. I leave a message for our insurance agent and it's all we can do until the morning. The next morning our friends John and Heather from Broken Arrow come down, and Ed and Tanner from Vian all come over and help with the cleanup. Its so nice to have such amazing friends to come to action for you. Thank you all for the work you helped us with. It was more appreciated than you'll ever know.

 

Fast forward to September. We've had our adjuster out, Mark's brother Brian came out with his wife Kristen and of course Ed has been a regular helper here to put Humpty Dumpty's House back together again. Thank goodness for insurance. Things are coming along nicely. The horse barn has a roof and repairs made to it. Marks shop has a new roof and the changes are being made on it. Mark is trying to do as much drywall work as possible before leaving for fishing tournaments in California. I'm preparing for the flush in September, an Artificial Insemination Clinic and the Oklahoma City State Fair and one other goat show. Its going to be a crazy month, but that's ok. October and November are big show months too and Craves first babies should be on the ground by then. I have a feeling its going to get better now that the storms over. After all, isn't that when you see the rainbow?