Jun 30, 2011 | Uncategorized
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| Tornado Damage in Clarksville |
My grandpa’s property was devestated by a tornado a last month.
He lives in Clarksville, Arkansas- up on a ridge overlooking the town.
The tornado came from close to the river and made it’s way up along a country road- destroying the country club, some homes, new car wash, and more. It continued across the interstate and over the creek and up the hill to my grandpa’s house.
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| Backyard |
The crazy thing was this…
After tearing up the electrical posts across from his house and splitting them in 3-4 parts it circled his house- taking up EVERY TREE in his yard except for one. He had huge oaks, buckeyes, walnuts, pecans that were torn up by the roots like daisies and thrown. His HAM radio antenna (about 40 ft tall) was twisted like a cherry stem.
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| HAM antenna |
NONE of those many trees hit his house. His garage and sheds (except for one) were destroyed, some just gone. There were shingles embedded in tree trunks.
Craziness.
A pine tree was thrown through one of his kitchen windows and sucked out again.
(He doesn’t even have pine trees and neither do his neighbors!)
Through the kindness of strangers they had all the trees chopped up very quickly.
(I believe they said it was the local football team and the Arkansas Baptist Association.)
My mom and uncle are still up there helping with the mess.
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| Emily’s favorite Pin Oak (Was about 3.5 ft. in diameter) |
After sucking all the siding off the house, the tornado went back into a neighbor’s field and took 100 of her trees from a pasture. It then went to my aunt’s house and crashed her garage and took some trees. Then it decided to hop up into the air again and destroyed an apartment complex and a few new homes before heading out of town. I think the death toll was five.
Storms have been so bad this year.
To me it’s a sign that global warming is VERY real. Weather patterns are changing.
Mother nature is not happy.
Jun 28, 2011 | Uncategorized
We had a beautiful day at Lake Ouachita on Sunday,
Boating, Picnicking, Swimming, Exploring…
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| Boys Swimming |
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| Driftwood |
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| Pretty Cove
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Until Max fell off a rocky hill about 15 feet down
and hit the rocks ALL THE WAY DOWN into 50 feet of water.
I’ve never seen so much blood.
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| Waiting on Stitches (Cleaned up Version) |
And we had to high-tail it to the marina and then to the ER.
5 hours, 5 Stitches, 1.5″ laceration (to the bone), lots of scratches,
and a mom on the table with him, later we made it home.
Angels definitely involved in this one.
Jun 23, 2011 | Main Dishes, Recipes
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| Emily Making Rigatoni with Our New Pasta Machine! |
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| Raw Rigatoni! |
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| Ready for Sauce! |
Homemade Pasta
This is supposed to make 6 servings, but I tripled it for my family and ended up with leftovers.
I could have doubled it and we’d have been fine.
1 lb. (16 oz) of flour
4 eggs
Put flour in bowl and make a well.
Add eggs to well and with a fork mix and stir as much as possible.
Using hands mix and knead dough until smooth and pliable. Dough should NOT be sticky. If it is too dry add a bit of water. If it’s too wet add more flour. Again, you don’t want it sticky or it will be a pain to work with (especially if you are using a pasta machine.) I’d gotten this one at Williams & Sonoma today with a gift certificate I’d gotten awhile back. It was down to $20 from $80 and makes
Rigatoni, 2 sizes of macaroni, Fusilli, and Bucatini (hollow spaghetti type pasta!)
It worked great. I have a normal pasta maker I use mainly for making fondant bows for wedding cakes, that we also use for fettucinni and making pasta for ravioli or lasagna.
Jun 23, 2011 | Motherhood, Uncategorized
My life has been full of bridges lately-
J bridged from Kindergarten to First Grade,
E “bridged” from 8th grade to High School…
So I thought I’d share some summer sunset bridge pics.
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| Sunset View from the “Big Dam Bridge” |
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| Lights on Bridge |
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| My Boys Being Nice to Each Other! |
The kids got out of school the second week of June, so we have been swimming and swimming. School starts back in three weeks so I’m trying to plan a quick mini-vacation.
Lake Ouachita, Silver Dollar City, or Chattanooga?
