Never a Dull Moment

May starts the tornado and hail/wind/storm season in Kansas.  

It has started with a vengeance - we have had several days

of our 'weather radio' alarm singing at all times of the day -

thank goodness we have that.

Monday, Memorial Day, we spent the early evening watching the skies..that is our best guess for what is happening in the atmosphere above us, as we aren't near a town and are hardly ever considered on the big city TV channels

that are hundreds of miles from here and treat us as a we don't exist - 

like the left-out (dare I say, 'bastard') stepchild.  (click 'read more' to go on)

I DO have a great FB hook-up with the 

National Weather Service in Hastings, NE. 

which include our area in their forecasting.

(Looking northwesterly over the grain bin)

These are the wispy 'funnel like' clouds we had as this storm moved just to the north of us one mile...and proceeded to become a large tornado about 12 or so 'as the crow flies' miles from us.  One can tell after living here awhile, how to read the skies.  Weather is awesome.  

With these storms comes lots of hail chances - I have worked so hard in my veggie garden, I cringe each time these storms crank up.  My rule is - I will replant ONCE if it gets taken out early on and if that gets hailed out, no more for that year.  It is a lot of work to get things going.  BTW that tornado took out two farms in the country - we hear...one of them a pastor's...

I will say no more.  

The more extreme heat will come soon...

we will think of cooler places to go in the RV. 

I want to be painting right now..and am sporadically doing so - between getting the place back into the swing of an actual growing season and taking care of vegetative areas that were neglected last year - drought conditions/and the inability to do much with the healing of my broken ankle/surgeries - 

left them ailing and unkempt. In the coolness of some afternoons - we just sit outside and watch nature and the birds and their brooding efforts.

Last night we saw our first white-tailed buck - the first deer we have seen in a few years here...he had come out of the trees, froze, pondered us for a little bit, then he hissed loudly, made some grunting noises and bounced off into the woods.  I have never heard one make that sound.  

(Looking north over the 'machine shed')

That big dark part in the center of this photo is that tornado - winding up for the assault.  I saw that some 'weather chasing' guys in a specially designed vehicle for chasing storms, ended up in a ditch during this tornado for 5 hours before being pulled out.  I think they know, but you DO NOT travel down some of these farm roads in a storm...the mud makes them impassable.  

Been there, done that.