Friday, May 3, 2019

Copperheads, Tornadoes, and Floods, Oh My!

This week has been so crazy! So I was walking my dog inside a fenced-in area in our backyard the other night and I just happened to have him on a leash. The only reason I had him on a leash is because he’s kind of squirrely and hard to catch and around bedtime he likes to hide under the bed in protest. So I threw a leash on him and out the door we went. Sometimes I’ll let him drag his leash in the pen and if I need to catch him I can always step on the end of the leash but I just happened to still have a hold on him and I was shining the light right in front of his path when I saw a Copperhead still as a stone with its head up looking at us. I was able to pull the dog back away from the most dangerous snake in our area before anyone got hurt. God was looking out for me that night. I certainly don’t have an extra $30,000.00 to pay for anti-venom and even a small bite could potentially kill an eleven pound dog. I’ll be wearing my boots outside after dark from now on. I’m used to checking all around me for bears when I go outside but looking for something small slithering on the ground is new to me. I’ve even found myself shining my light in the trees above me at times wondering if there’s a mountain lion up there, but snakes just don’t seem as likely to me somehow. And people wonder why I stay inside all the time.

Fast forward a day or two and my whole family is sitting in the cellar waiting out the tornado warnings. My daughter and her dog are shaking in terror. My dog fears nothing except being alone so he's running in circles. My husband and I sing to pass the time and lighten the mood. Singing in a cellar is a lot like singing in the shower. The sound bounces off the walls and makes everyone sound like a pop star. Pretty soon there’s a knock on the metal door above us and the neighbor and her little girl join us. It looks like a river flowing through the yard and down the road. They’ve since confirmed 12 tornadoes that day, but luckily our neighborhood was spared. The road, however, wasn’t. The creeks got up and my mother-in-law was unable to come home from work that night and had to spend the night in town. My father-in-law and some neighbors had to drive tractors down to the creek the next morning and fix the huge holes in the road. Everyone was taking pictures to show their boss why they couldn’t get to work on time. We’ve got a few rock piles in the yard that weren’t there before and the run-off is still making its way down the road but no damage done. All a part of living in the Ozarks.

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