Tornado Photos
On July 18, 2008, we had just brought the cows in from the pasture to start milking. It was raining, and the wind was blowing the rain sideways into the barn, which was an occasional occurrence. The wind continued to pick up. The boys went to shut the sliding door, it was blown inside and threw Nick over the cows into the manger. Ashley was at the far end of the barn with Jasmine, while Kathy, Greg, and Nick were at the head of the manger. Everyone hunkered down as we heard the tin being pulled off the barn, and then the roof. Greg wanted us all to go into the milkhouse, since it was the only part of the building that was engineered "properly". We all ended up huddled at the head of the manger, holding on to a beam and each other. When the wind slowed down and we could not longer hear parts of the barn being pulled off, we made a mad dash to the house, jumping over debris as we went. When we finally emerged from the house, this is what we found. We lost a bull, a calf, and 2 heifers due to injuries. Overall, we were extremely lucky that no one was injured and that we didn't lose more. We were able to move to our neighbor's that night, were milking by midnight, and stayed up there until November. We rebuilt everything and have continued to move forward. Without the help of our neighbors and friends, we would not be where we are today.