Large Cottonwood tree.... 4' diameter twisted off and thrown across the road into our yard.  Took a large bulldozer to drag it out of the yard, even after it was cut into several pieces.

Two large Spruce trees from the front yard were shoved onto the house.  The trees were at least 56 years old.  God was very good to us, damage to the house from this was minimal.

Mark had just arrived home from work.  He had ridden the Harley to work that day... and had been rained on coming home.   The storm was just arriving here as he pulled the bike into the garage and closed the doors. 

We decided to hold off doing chores until the storm passed.  It was shortly before 6:00 pm there was still plenty of daylight to do chores, we'd have supper first and watch it rain.  With supper in the oven and a couple of tall glasses of ice cold tea... we had just settled into chairs at the kitchen table.  We were sharing the events of our day with each other when the rain became very heavy.   The wind was really picking up.  We noticed the strangest rain, which appeared to be in like sheets of rain... which is just hard to describe... because we didn't have time to take much more notice of it.

At about that moment... the house started to roar and vibrate.  Mark looked at me and said "I don't think that's thunder."  Tree branches began sailing over the roof and into the back yard.  The roaring vibration continued to get stronger, and the lights went out.

There was a loud crashing sound, the sound of breaking glass. The whole house seemed to roar and vibrate. I scooped up my toy poodle and we ran from the kitchen to the breeze way (stairs to the basement are in the breeze-way)  approx 20 feet. 

It was over, just pouring down rain still.  But the roaring vibration was gone... so were the spruce trees in our front yard... as well as the large cedar trees across the drive that stood in front of the garage.  Oh and the majority of the LARGE cottonwood's from the other side of the road were now laying in our yard, across the road and on top of the pasture fence.   The transformer that used to be at the top of the power pole,  is now laying in the front yard.  The road into the farm is now blocked from both directions with trees laying in the road.  We ran back into the house to pull on shoes so we could begin checking livestock.  The weather radio was just announcing a severe thunderstorm for southeastern Morrill county in Nebraska.  <no fooling>  A couple of phone calls were made and we were headed back out the door.

The livestock... how and where are they!   My cousin and I had just weaned kids the day before and move my mature does to a new pen.  The shelter in the doe pen was standing on the back wall, with the opening skyward.  My does were wet and a little spooky but unharmed.  The ponies (two older miniature geldings and a Welsh Pony gelding) were fine.  Their barn was undamaged, their corrals in good shape.  They too were a little spooky but in good condition.  The barn (a hay shed that we had converted into a kidding barn) that was temporarily housing my weanling bucks, as I planned to move them that weekend had the two end walls left standing... the rear wall was down and the roof is gone.  (we have since located the roof, it is about 250 yards out into the alfalfa field).   Those weanling bucks were soaked and spooky... but not a scratch on any of them!   All five of my Pyrenees are accounted for ... they were a little jumpy... but fine.  With fence down everywhere...  we gathered them up and put them in one of the kennels for a few days.   Praise God... no emergency Vet care (or worse) needed!

On the way back to the house we discover that my pickup (tho missed by two trees... one falling on each end of the pickup) did not escape damage.  And Mark's work commuter car... had the rear window blown out of it.  And a branch hit the large picture window to my studio. ahhhh... The breaking glass sound...  But again God was very good to us... only the outside pane of glass was broken... no glass, water etc indoors!

By 7:00 that evening the calvary had begun to arrive.  Thank you to all our friends and family who arrived so promptly with chains saws and willing hearts.  There are not words to describe the blessings that we felt thru the help you all offered.