Dancing in the Dark

Max had to go to bad dog university, so didn't return until about 11:30 a.m. Tracey was riding at the LOMH, but we weren't' there, can she stay? What's for Lunch? We did make it to the LOMH to meet Tracey, but never did ride; the boys really enjoyed getting tacked up but not ridden, eating all the clover they could find while we ate lunch and visited with Tracey. No one else was there, we had the club to ourselves.

The sky got really black so we took off their saddles - and drove home in the splattering rain. It rained, but not that heavy, and certainly not windy at all.

However the weather reports were alarming - 'seek shelter immediately;' Tornado had touched down in Fairfax and another, but was not confirmed, in White Oak. Yikes!

The sky cleared and we were setting up for another spectacular sunset on Annapolis Rock. Honestly, this place is like Hawaii, but don't tell anyone.

While I was feeding: had Sprite in her stall and I was standing in Lil Fred's stall, I hear this weird sound, like something hitting the barn roof, but was muffled by the grain hitting Fred's feed tray. Lil Fred takes off in a cloud of dust, down the aisle at high speed and the boys are running in the field. The radio goes silent. I hear a truck screeching tires, braking down the hill while coming to an abrupt stop. What just happened?

I dump the remainder of Lil Fred's ration in his tray, closed him in his stall, put the boys bowls down in the aisle, run into the quiet house. The dogs and cat are there, but he's not in the house. Now I'm yelling, freaking out. What just happened?

A tree in front of our neighbor's house fell onto the roadway, bringing all the lines down with it, splattering on the road, spanning from guard rail to guard rail. The lines were intertwined in the Oak, which appeared to be a healthy tree.

When the power went out, Tom had looked outside to see the lines in front of our house swinging and swaying; he ran outside while I was running inside! He called the power utility, reporting the outage and then 911, reporting the road closure.

The power was out from around 6:45 to about 11:30 p.m., but the road was closed until closer to 1:00 a.m. He got the Honda 2000i Generator hooked up, running the fridge, computer and a couple interior and exterior lamps. The responding police officers closed the road with police tape and flares. The utility's workers showed up to restore power around 9:30, but the highway crew showed up with chain saws, and then the Gradall cleared the debris out of the way after midnight.