A Spring Recital

Here is C playing David Popper's Gavotte Op 23, No 2 (for cello, I THINK!).  Again, I have to go the YouTube route so sorry about that!  As I mentioned in the "notes" the room was really dark and my little camera couldn't make up the difference, so I had to "enhance" the video....you'll see!

Gavotte for cello by David Popper

Hope you enjoy it! 

Clean-up is happening! There IS hope - it CAN be done!

Corner of Clonts and Apison Pike.
Sorry about the Out of focus - this was taken by a friend while we were driving around since I didn't get this exact shot - but it's from facebook.... the resolution is poefy! (horrible)

Here is the exact same corner 3 weeks later.

Putting up a new house! (about May 30)

Trusses almost all on (May 31)

Progress (June 1)

In the middle of clean-up

Looking quite different again.

Lake's house the day after the tornado

Almost 3 weeks later

Almost gone...(we had worked here the day before this was taken)

Gone.....

Along Apison Pike

Partly cleared

The heartbreaking day after

Cleaning up the mess

Only foundation slabs left

The Quinn's house several days after

House is now gone.

 I guess they might rebuild.

Clearing for the foundation

Starting to dig the foundation.  (In the meantime, the Quinns are staying in the camping trailer you can see on the far right)

Salvaging belongings

A couple weeks later

Looking for our old cottage

There it is again

Garden of Eden versus Valley of Destruction

Just to let you know the South is alive and well, and still has its sense of humor:

Yep, it's an "open" house all right!

People have been rallying 'round to help.  The tents on the right are filled with water and food for anyone who needs it, and crews have been working non-stop to clear this corner for someone in need.

And just over the hill --- the garden of Eden....survivor's guilt rears its ugly head again....

Mushrooms by our hemlock

C took some of these photos.  Here we get a nice close-up.

Ah, my little rose bush is growing and is SO beautiful.

And to think I "rescued" it from a potential construction site! (In the background, S is hard at work weed-eating the ditch). Any ideas on how to kill the grass growing up inside the rosebush??

A week or so later

Our Magnolia blooms again (and they smell heavenly)

Tornado clean-up and other stuff

This morning I had to document the girls doing clean-up as I had neglected to do that before (document it, that is) and they've been real troopers hauling away debris and doing their part, so here they are working hard.

Cleaning up the roadside

Some house siding wrapped around a tree

Finding shingles, insulation, bits of plywood and 2X4's, siding, metal car parts and other junk.

Back home after working hard.

Ah, we have a different shape this time - do you see the tornado on the 27th?

Adios til next time!

Sheep shearing

Yesterday we watched folk shearing some Jacob sheep. I think they were glad to get rid of their hot, woolly coats!

Corn!

Looks awkward but it's gotta be done.

Sir! You're getting a-a-a-awfully close to certain va-a-a-a-luables!  Please be Ca-a-a-a-reful!!

The back shearing is the most fun to watch.

Lotsa wool.

This is a year-old lamb - first timer.

I've put some of this on Youtube plus some hilarious shots of two frisky headbutting males after they were sheared.

Sheep shearing

Sheep headbutting

Headbutting sheep, with sound effects!

Tornado comes too close!

Our survivor's guilt is only offset a teeny bit by not having electricity for several days and no internet for 10 days after a tornado passed by too close for comfort on Wednesday evening, April 27, 2011.  Many homes were destroyed only a few hundred metres from our house and several lost their lives.  Clean-up will be ongoing for months, I'm sure.  Pictures will help give an idea of the devastation but of course, only being here will truly impress one with the total change in landscape of this area.

Only C and I were at home when the tornado came by.  We heard the "roar" right as we lost power.  I brushed it off as a train although there was no usual whistle of the horn but we did hurry down into the basement.  Only later that night did we find out that an EF4 had passed through our area when S phoned from the countryside somewhere where he and a friend had been trying to get home.  All the roads were blocked with trees as they tried this one and that one, and he eventually had to just give up trying and walked the last two miles (about 4 km) home, getting home around 12:30am.  He was visibly shaken by the total destruction he saw and by how close he came to dying when his head brushed an overhead electric wire in the darkness.  Fortunately it wasn't live!! Whew!

On Blair Road - this used to be a thick forest

The roof of County Line grocery store

What's left of County Line grocery

Taking stock the morning after

No more house

Morning after.  This house is lucky to be there.

What's left of the Lake's house

Lots of firewood

Debris everywhere.  Apison Pike

Wires strewn everywhere

Someone's barn flattened.  We live just over this ridge.

Collecting belongings

Alabama road

In shock morning after

What do we have left?

Next door to the previous family is this upside-down mobile home.  No fatalities!

Miracle survivors - some animals - a horse, donkey and some goats

Metal roofing and siding wrapped around trees like candy wrappers.

This one and another horse didn't make it.  They're about 1/2 a mile from home.

On McGhee Rd

McGhee road.  This was a "mansion" house.  In the tornado's direct path, no economic class was spared.

This was a house next door to the previous photo.  All survived!

A house collapsed on itself on Lead Mine Valley Rd

There is a lot of roofing work to be done.

Only the roof.  I couldn't see where the house was.

This family had just spent over a year working on their nice wooden fence.....

One can see the electric pylons bent like soft candles.  The houses in this subdivision mostly only suffered from roof damage, thankfully.

Clean-up begins

Painted on the house is: "God spared us".

Clean-up a week later on the flat-smashed McGhee Rd house

A triumphant declaration!

Corner of Klonts and Apison Pike.  I promise you, you will NOT know where you are when you drive here for the first time afterwards.  It looks like a bomb went off.

Well folk, that's my little show for now.  I have a video on YouTube showing much the same as above with a little video mixed in.  Actually, I'm having a little trouble posting to youtube so we'll see......keep checking!

Here's the link: Tornado damage in Apison