hummingbird pick-me-up

After yesterday's tornadoes, property destruction and loss of life, I just feel so heavy hearted.

We lost our cell service. And our chief means of communication was our home internet. (And of course we were watching Spann) For awhile we couldn't get in touch with my parents and didn't know if they were safe. Luckily, they are fine. Their house is fine. And BBWP in Arizona was actually able to get in touch with my mom before I did! I was so thankful for that. We didn't get cell service back until about 9pm. I would have been a nervous wreck if it took that long to hear from them!

Until about 2pm today I didn't think we had any damage. Sure, there was some wind, rain, lightening and thunder. But nothing "bad." We never even lost our Dish Network signal. Well, I finally looked in our yard and noticed one of our trees was almost split in half.

the view looking up

the limbs on the fence

Not that big of a deal. Nothing an hour or so of manual labor couldn't fix. (the fence is fine.)

But this broke my heart. I found it in the yard close to the tree.

It's a May 16, 2005 issue of Jet magazine. The label is an address in Pratt City (Birmingham, AL) A solid 45 minute drive from us. And we later learned that the street on the label is one of the ones totally destroyed. As in no houses remaining. (sigh)

It breaks my heart to think that this lady who owned/owns this magazine might not have survived. (right now I have no idea either way)

As a way to cheer up a little I decided it was time we filled up and hang the kids' hummingbird feeders. Earlier in the week, The Wonder Pets helped a baby hummingbird. Daughter was beside herself with excitement that such a bird existed. You should have heard her going on and on about this tiny red bird with wings that flap super fast that can fly like a helicopter and has a long beak. She was just a talkin' about it. Off we went to get each kid a hummingbird feeder. They've been talking about it for two days!

Showing off their feeders

"Mommy, we're just relaxing while you fill dem up."

and hung.

now we just have to wait for the hummingbirds to show up.