In the Red

 

After several days of warnings about being in the red zone for severe weather, we're very lucky to have not been hit with anything other than a couple of nasty downpours and a 10 minute episode of 60-mph winds that drove the rain horizontal on Sunday.  That always freaks me out.  It really freaked me out when the house started groaning under the strain of the winds.  Fortunately, we didn't get any hail on our new roof.

But the weather missing us means that it went and hit someone else and my heart absolutely pours out to those folks in Oklahoma who have lost family, friends, property, and have had their world turned on end. I was happy to turn on the news and see that the number of fatalities has been revised down significantly as they pull people from the rubble.  Thank goodness for small miracles.  Actually, it is indeed a miracle that anyone survived that monster Tornado.

The sheer power of Mother Nature is amazing, is it not? 

In other news around here, our buddy Zinger (the bird that sleeps in the porch light at night) has gone missing.  I'm choosing to think that he's found a Mrs. Zinger and is off making little sparrow babies  that's much better than thinking some foul deed has been visited upon him.  Like the neighborhood cat treating him as an appetizer.

And, speaking of birds...While the roofers had the downspout disconnected, some enterprising sparrows apparently built a nest in there.  It then clogged the downspout when it rained.  And some silly Starling either dove in or fell in and I could hear him struggling all the way down the downspout on Sunday.  Since the downspout connects to an underground drain, the poor thing couldn't get out.  The only option was to rescue the poor thing by disconnecting the downspout from the drain and, upon removing the last screw, out popped a full sparrow's nest, followed by one tired and upset Starling!

Oh, and one more thing about birds.  Have you seen this crazy video?