A tornado touched down a couple miles from our farm the other night, the same night another bounced onto the ground over in Pierce County. Another one did some damage last night in Chippewa County.
All of those storms arrived within days of another quick burst of storm-wind that dumped an evergreen tree and knocked fairly large branches from trees in our farmyard.
It would be easy to think that I might, after having gone through some many of life’s summers, be getting used to dealing with summer storms passing through our rural countryside. I’m not, though I somehow managed to sleep through the passing of that tornado that did damage to some neighbors’ trees and buildings the other night.
A storm that knocked down my oldest brother’s barn a few miles from my family’s home farm (that storm also damaged some of the home farm’s buildings) never will be forgotten in my heart — the pain, agony and tears experienced that day, somehow followed with a relief that nobody was hurt. I’ve since been in many storms since then, of course, including a terribly destructive typhoon; I’ve even felt the rumblings of an earthquake.
It all makes me cringe each time another storm moves in. It’s appears that will be something that I’ll carry until my mortal being is returned to the soil.
I’ll continue to seek solace in crops and structures that weren’t damaged in those storms, and especially in people not being injured. And, I’ll turn the page to another summer day and listen to the corn mature.
Those are about the only things I can do, where nature’s forces are concerned.
— Scott Schultz
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