In the morning, all was still calm. Off to church we went. By the time church had gotten out though, we understood what the alert was all about.
We were in sustained 30 mile an hour winds with gusts up to 60 miles an hour. On the way home from church a dumpster blew across the road right in front of us. And that was in town.
Now, about our property. Our farm is on a hill. And we built our house on top of that hill. And there are no trees on top of that hill. Just our barn/house.
We are experiencing every bit of those 60 mile an hour gusts. I was relieved to pull up to our drive and see the house still intact. :)
Although, not everything up here has faired as well as our house.
Do you remember our chicken coop?
We thought we over built it. It is a movable coop, however I could barely manage to scoot it to its next spot on my own. Ethan could a bit better, but when it came time to move it any large distance, he would get my help.
So here are the nest boxes, the feeder, and the waterer. But where's the coop?
Oh . . . Here it is. A good 50 feet from where it should be. Lucky for the chickens, they weren't inside. Lucky for us, it decided to obey the road sign.
The same gust that blew away the coop also blew open our sliding door on the end of our building. Thankfully it didn't rip it off. Ethan is working right now to secure it a bit more.
The chickens, however, are going to have to fend for themselves for awhile. With winter coming, and a baby in a couple of weeks, they are pretty low on the priority list. Among other things we still have to install our wood burning stove, insulate our mudroom, take our pigs to market, and prepare the property for the cows to arrive.
So hopefully all of those coyotes that howl at night don't notice the flattened chicken coop that is in the ditch.
7 comments:
That is quite a story. I hope your chickens make it without a shelter and with the coyotes and all. I hope our chicken coop never has that problem, ours is super over-engineered. We occasionally get strong winds. My husband can move it, but not without a lot of effort - and it has wheels on one side that he stole from a cart. I wish you all God's blessing with your upcoming birth.
Oh my word??? Did you get cold last night? I got up in the night to stoke the fire because it was windy the fire burned hot and fast.
But you don't have the furnace in yet... how are you staying warm?
So -- few eggs in the next few weeks. I'm sorry -- but a new baby is way better then eggs, if you ask me. Ü
Cathy-
We thought that ours was overdone too, but the move to the farm must have weakened it a bit, or the wind must have just got under the right, or wrong corner, flipped it, and then off it went.
Jennifer -
As for heat, we installed 2 electric wall heaters to run in case we would leave for over a day. They were to keep our pipes from freezing. We have been using those until we get our wood stove hooked up. Just one is actually keeping the house quite comfortable for now, but I'm nervous to see our electric bill!
We had our lesson with those big winds last year- one came through and tore a door off of our machine shed, it did a flip and THANKFULLY flew over a camper that a friend was storing on our property, only nicking the top a bit. But WOW- the quote we got on replacing that door was HUGE! Before last winter we just ended up rebuilding it ourselves, salvaging what we could and buying a new track. That Iowan country wind is something to be reconed with! Glad you guys are OK...thinking of you getting close to new baby time!
By the way- what is it with those NOAA weather radios always going on in the middle of the night?? I mean, if there's a tornado or something, fine, go ahead and wake me. But man, sometimes it's like PANIC PANIC PANIC *push button* "The national weather service in DM has issued a frost warning..." Because that was essential at 2am. Maybe I'm just testy because I have small babies =)Ha! But seriously, those radios were a lifesaver to us when we first moved out here, the only thing that kept me sleeping at night during a storm.
We just went through our first wind storm back in Sept. where I live. Remnants from hurricane Ike is what we were told. Our area looked like a tornado went through. It was a beautiful day but the wind was just fierce and downed trees, tore off roofs, etc. Glad you are all okay.
Amy
Post a Comment