Sidetracked by The Weather

I don't know that in my nearly 6 decades I've EVER been under a tornado WARNING before, but i am now and have been since 4:30 or so. My pal Johnny Montezuma calls me at 4:45 this morning from his summer camp in Idaho Falls (aka Mayberry West) as I'm groggily listening to hail beat against the bedroom window. "Did you know you're under a tornado warning? Not a watch, a WARNING?" Holy crap. Thunder, lightning close, wind is whipping hail against the windows. Little hail thank god, not like the ice-cube sized stuff they got in Phoenix yesterday.

I put on the slicker and muck boots and head outside with the flashlight to check on the goats and sheep. Everybody is under cover and dry, but clearly not happy about this turn of events. It's close to breakfast time and they already know they're gonna have to wait. Bawling their general dissatisfaction with every aspect of their miserable existence at me. Taking their frustrations out on each other; there are already some bloody heads I'll have to spray with BlueKote later. Back inside to check the NOAA radar page for Cornville. Guess I'm not going to Javelina Leap today. The grape harvest is in for the most part in our neck of the woods, but there are still a few vineyards that have late maturing varieties yet on the vine. Here's hoping they've not suffered any damage.

It's 10 after 9 now and new warnings are popping up on the radar. At this moment we are just east of one and it's trending our way. It's guaranteed that somewhere in this valley, some fool is at this very moment saying "but we NEED the rain". Of course we need the rain. It's a desert for pete's sake. We always need the rain. Nothing like overstating the obvious.  I'm sure the trees are real happy, at least the ones that don't get torn from their comfy spot in the earth and sent flying onto some unsuspecting person's roof. This isn't Kansas, we don' need no steenkeeng tornadoes!

The black dot just west of the center of the image is about where we are.