It Wasn't a Tornado

Photo courtesy of NSSL

Yesterday, hungry and exhausted after a long day of homeschooling, considering going out to dinner, we instead decided to head out to the grocery store to pick up a few things for dinner.  The weather forecast was calling for severe thunder storms, but I figured that, one, the storm would not hit (it wouldn't have been the first time the forecast was wrong) or, two, that we could stay ahead of the weather, go to the store, and come back before the storm hit.

At the store it seemed like my plan was working.  It was looking like the storm was either not going to come or that we would be done shopping and back home before it struck.  Then, all of a sudden, as we were almost done at the checkout register, we saw the sky turn completely black on one side of the parking lot, while the sky was still blue in the other side, it started to rain heavily, and the wind started to blow very hard. And just as quickly as it had started, the storm stopped, the sky cleared, and the wind died down.  It was quite eerie.

We quickly loaded the groceries into the car and drove home while listening to the news reports on the car radio about a tornado warning right where we were.  We really didn't see anything strange until we were about a block from our house and found a tree that was partially blocking the road.  The neighbors were out moving the tree from the road, so I decided to turn in the other direction, and that's when we came across this tree.

Obviously, I wasn't going to get through that way, so I had to turn around and go the other way, where the neighbors were clearing the road.

Here are a few of the trees that were destroyed in our street.

And then, we have our beautiful linden tree, may it rest in peace.

 Here's another view showing how it was damaged beyond repair.

We couldn't save the tree, so we had it cut down.

This is all that's left of our tree.

We also lost some shingles off the roof, and limbs from some of the other trees in the yard.  Thankfully, that was all the damage we had.  One good thing that happened was that a toy the children had thrown on the roof and that had been stuck there for quite some time, was blown off the roof all in one piece.

Well, apparently, we had a few small tornadoes hit our area last night, and the weather service is calling for more severe weather tonight and tomorrow.

My Children, the Space Cadets

I am the proud mother of two bona fide space cadets.  This past weekend Googie’s Cub Scout pack had an astronomy presentation for the astronomy belt loop, a type of award that Cub Scouts can earn. The program was going to start with a presentation and would conclude with some field work to give everyone a chance to use their telescopes. 

When we arrived, the scouts were already sitting on the floor in the front of the room while the adults were sitting behind them. The room was packed.  You could feel the excitement in the air.  Everyone that had a telescope had brought it.  Astronomy is one of Bubba’s hobbies so he brought some of his astronomy books and his six-inch Dobsonian telescope.  As soon as we walked in, Googie decided that he would be sitting in the very front of the room and since Bubba is a Den Chief, he was standing to the side with the leaders.  Normally I like to sit next to my children so I can remind them to keep quiet but all the adult seats close to the front of the room were taken.  This meant that I was as far in the back of the room as possible while still being in the same room.  

The man giving the lecture was very knowledgeable.  His presentation was clear and the scouts were very interested in what he had to say, especially mine as everyone there found out.  Now, for fun, my children are constantly reading books about astronomy and watching documentaries about space.  They don’t know much about popular music, video games or T.V. shows, but they can tell you everything you ever wanted to know (or not know) about astronomy.  Homeschooled children are weird that way, especially hyperactive or autistic ones.  The presentation started and so did my children.  They kept answering the questions and blurting out facts.  The leaders were trying really hard to get them to be quiet and give the other children and the presenter a chance to speak. Each time I heard one of my children’s name being called, I kept wanting to crawl and hide under the table.  Wait, I think I actually did crawl under the table. There was no stifling their enthusiasm.  They were convinced that they knew all about astronomy and they were going to let everyone there know it. 

Finally, we got a chance to go outside and look through the telescopes.  Although it was very windy that night, it was clear and cool and we were able to see quite a bit.  We were able to see Jupiter on the horizon with three of its four viewable moons.  We also saw the Orion nebula, the Pleiades cluster, and the craters on our moon.  (Yikes, it sure sounds like I know what I'm talking about!  Actually, Bubba filled me in on the details.) This wasn’t too bad for a night of stargazing in the city.  By then it was getting late so we had to pack up and leave.  I wanted to duck out ASAP when the presentation was over, but my space cadets didn’t let me.  They wanted to stick around and keep bombarding the man giving the presentation with questions and facts about space. I could see the poor man’s pleading eyes searching for mercy.  I literally had to drag each of my space cadets, one at a time, out of there by the elbow.  After that night I couldn't wait to go home to get some space.  Yes, beam me up Scotty…and hurry!

Looks like cocoons are dormant

So much for the swallowtail caterpillars. It looks like they went dormant and will not be emerging anytime soon. I guess it's something to which we can look forward next Spring. Yeah!

Praying Mantis

This spring, a friend of ours hatched some praying mantises from eggs and needed to find homes for some of them; therefore, we offered to "adopt" a bunch of them to place in our garden. We were hoping that they would eat the big ants that were taking up residence around the bean and tomato plants. Well, was I surprised to see this huge "grown up" praying mantis on our door the other day. I couldn't believe how big it was. Pretty cool, huh?

Swallowtail Caterpillar Update

Yes, it's true I'm the proud mother of boys! And as everyone knows, boys love bugs. Hence, my recent focus on bug photos. Here is a picture of the swallowtail butterfly coccon in Bubba's bug habitat.

Pictures of Swallowtail Caterpillars

Bubba, Hubby and I have found at least 8 swallowtail caterpillars in our garden! Just as I promised yesterday, I am uploading some photos. This is a photo of two of the swallowtail caterpillars that we found in our garden today. How exciting! We could even see them munching on the parsley. Bubba also has two in his habitat as you can see below.

Today was also our first day of school. Everything went really well. Bubba started the day with one hour of piano practice and then we all got together at 10:00 for a family Rosary and the official start of our school year. Googi was so excited to start Kindergarten and he spent some time after lessons were over looking over his school books. He particularly enjoyed his new math book and was so thrilled that he already knew most of the things in his book.