STORM

We went to the reunion of relatives on my dad's side of the family yesterday.  My sister met us at a convenient spot and rode along, so we had a good visit with her.  Coming home, we saw dark storm clouds ahead, and before we reached Liberty we were hit by heavy rain and strong winds.  We saw motorcyclists taking shelter under overpasses; I always feel for those people, because we've been out on the bike in the rain and I know how scary it can be.  
As we approached Buckner, there were limbs down and leaves on the highway, and whole town seemed to be without electricity.  
We were without power when we arrived home, too.  Although there wasn't any major damage, some limbs had broken.

My old cabin sat under lots of big trees in the woods and never had limbs on the roof.  It isn't harmed, by the way, at least as far as we can tell.  

Two of the big evergreen trees behind Cliff's shop broke off.  There's a propane tank underneath those fallen trees.  It's a shame to lose the tall trees, but still not a big deal in the vast scheme of things.  
On the news, I heard them saying winds were clocked at Higginsville at 95 miles per hour.   
At the reunion, I caught up with cousins I see once a year.

As always, we four 1944 baby girls lined up for a picture.  I find it amazing that four brothers managed to sire baby girls in the same year, although as the others pointed out, the Allens tended to have more girls than boys.  I graduated with the two girls on the right. 

That's me, top row, right.  Left of me is my cousin Alice, and on the bottom left is my cousin Frances.  Lela, the other 1944 baby, stayed home on the farm where she was born, and one of her sisters still lives on their old home place in north Missouri.  

Here's a stained old picture of the four 1944 baby girls.  In all my baby pictures, you will see me wearing a hat.  I was bald until I was about two years old, and my mother wanted the world to know I was a girl.  


While I don't have any earthshaking tales to tell, my favorite Russian (also the only Russian I know) is back home in Kansas City after a visit to Argentina, and is doing a series of posts on his travels.  If you're interested, check out the Kansas City Russian.


On another note, I'm rather excited that enough people have clicked on the ads on this blog to get me past $98; at $100, I'm supposed to receive a check from Google.  It has taken me five or six years to accumulate this much, so I imagine it will take another couple of months to actually hit $100.  With the economy like it is, I appreciate any extra money that comes in.  
For some reason I just haven't been in a blogging mood lately, so think nothing of it if I skip a day or two.