First of all, I want to give all praise, honor and glory to my God. He has blessed us, provided for us abundantly and sustained us. He is more than enough. Our loss is but nothing to our gain. He has a plan. All things come at His hand and are for the very best. We are profoundly grateful that He protected our family in the storm and continues to protect us. Bless His holy name!
I promised to share more about the tornado when I felt ready. This is so painful to recall but I feel that my farmstead has a story to tell and I must be the one to do the telling. The above picture shows only one of the many, many, many huge trees we lost. This is the rootball for just one of them. Some were snapped and some were uprooted. It actually skinned the bark off many of the trees as it splintered them.
The above picture was taken 3 days after the tornado hit our farmstead. This is a friend that crawled in to help recover some things. He is lying on the floor. The clear acrylic thing with little bumps at the top of the photo is a light fixture that is in the ceiling. When I say it leveled it, I mean it leveled it.
First , may I offer a little background?
My deceased husband and I bought this place. We were a young family with two beautiful little girls. We had saved for a long time to make a substantial downpayment on the place of our dreams once we found it. The place of our dreams would not be like most people's dreams. I am a country girl. I love the woods. The home was nothing fancy but we knew we could fix it up and then later planned to build a log house. Besides, it had 2 barns, a feed barn, a chicken coop and 67 chickens. It was fenced and cross fenced . It had fields, meadows , creeks and gazillions of huge old trees. It was an old homeplace so it had heirloom roses, azaeas, yellowbells lining the driveway interspersed among huge old pines. There were camelia bushes, dogwoods, lillies and jonquils. It had quint trees, apple, plum, peach and muscadine vines. The lady we bought it from rescued grey hounds so we had kennels for our dogs. And did I mention the gazillions of huge old trees?
We bought this place in November. I had prayed a long time for my husband to become a believer and he was saved around this same time. We began to go to a little baptist church just across the woods. The little church was 100 years old.
My wonderful husband was diagnosed the following June and we battled his illness for 8 years. During this time I continued to homeschool and took jobs cleaning, ironing , mowing grass, and clearing fence rows to pay the mortgage. My daughters went with me. We worked hard to pay for our farmstead. We filled it with goats, rabbits, ducks and even guinae pigs! I learned about organic gardening from a friend and had a garden every year.
I was married for 22 years and then widowed. I raised my family at the farmstead and that is where I lost my husband.
After my daughters were grown, I remarried another wonderful man who loves the Lord,(first marriage for him) and we moved 16 miles away. The farmstead, including 19 acres, was paid off through the provision of the Lord, so we were able to "live in two places" so to speak. We had gardens and animals there and spent much time at our tranquil little house in the woods. We remodeled and spent lots of money as well as put in many, many hours of "sweat equity"at our farmstead. In September, my daughter, expecting my first grandchild, moved into the farmstead along with her husband. We brought our little bundle of joy home to the farmstead in November. I know my daughter looks like a teenager. She is not, she just has good genetics. :)
I cannot tell you what this place means to me. Words fail to express it.
After the April 27th tornado, which destroyed our farmstead, our lives have been in a whirl. Our family is safe and sound and we are profoundly grateful for that blessing. Thank God, she honored her mother by coming to our other house 16 miles away the day of the tornado. For she was not afraid. She said she would just ride it out there. Everyone really expected it to go north of us. The Lord prompted my spirit and I had a feeling inside that I needed to get her and her family out of there. This was confirmed when my husband called me from work and told me to gather the family and circle the wagons that this brutal storm was on the way. My daughter only came here because she did not want me to worry. The bible teaches us to honor our mother and father that our days will be long upon the earth. She honored her mother and God so graciously saved their lives because of His goodness.
I picked them up around 1:00 pm that day and carefully closed and locked the gate after a long look at the house, barns, front yard and field. It was as if I was taking a picture in my mind. The wind was already blowing the trees around effortlessly and I remember asking myself silently what it would be like if those huge trees came down on the house.
It was not to be long before I found out what it would be like.
Above you will see our farmstead house. Well.....that is not entirely true. Our house is under there somewhere. Those men (my daddy, brother , uncle and some strangers) are standing on the corner of it after we had cut and pulled trees off of it.
Every place that you see sky, is a new view. Before the tornado, there was no skyline. Everywhere that you see sky now, used to be beautiful, huge old trees. This is but a small clip of the damage. There is not one building on the place that was not destroyed. The front 10 acres are either completely destroyed or damaged to the extent that they will have to be extracted. The fence is destroyed. I have not been able to bring myself to walk to the back 9 acres. I am so overwhelmed by the front that I just don't think I could take anymore.
I bought and moved to this place in 1994. When we turned on the road where it is located I did not recognize it. The fireman had cut a path down the center of the road so we were able to weave our way down. We could not find the driveway. After locating what was left of the gate, I ,like our daughters a couple of minutes before me, tried to crawl through the mass of trees . We were so emotionally overwrought that our brains would not accept the fact that we could not get down our driveway. The trees won though as it was an impossible feat and I finally crawled out and through the trees in the front yard to make my way to the house after hearing the loud wails of my daughters. Only....I could not see the house because it was also covered in trees and leveled to the ground. My husband, keeping his wits about him, as is his custom, walked through the hole in the trees along the front fenceline where the fence once was, that the fireman had cut. :) . We all broke down in a major way.
Everything after that was a whirl of thanksgiving, debri removal, chainsaws, heartbreak , fire and sweat. We had to take apart what was left of the house and burn it piece by painful piece.
We have a major disaster to recover from as you can see. We know that God has a plan. This may take years to clear ,not to even mention rebuilding. We elected not to take government help but will depend on God. The place was uninsured so it will take awhile to rebuild. I know it was foolish not to have insurance but with all the other bills we just do what we can do.
We have a short break as we cannot burn right now. Our state is in a drought and we are under a no burn order from the governor.
We are very much blessed as God kept all of our family safe. Everything comes at the hand of God and is for the very best. We are praising Him in the storm and for the storm.
Our daughter, baby grandson and son in love moved in with us. We are enjoying the blessing of time with them so very much! My college daughter already lived here so the whole tribe is under one roof again. :))
I plan to blog more as the days go by. I also have happy news to share in upcoming posts.
May the God of Israel bless you and keep you!
CammyH/hopefulheart77
Above: This is my daugher a few weeks ago.
This is my daughter and I Thursday night after the surgery.
