While watching the sky I notice two birds circling high in the storm...
I'm afraid I couldn't get a good telephoto shot of them, I didn't have my tripod to steady and focus, so I'm not real sure what these birds were.
But they kept circling and getting higher... and higher... till I could no longer see them. What kind of birds would fly up into a storm like that? And would they do that if there was a tornado approaching? 
and three of KMonster's friends came over Friday after school to take over my studio to play xbox and have fun. The two younger grandson's left after supper but the KMonster and his friends spent the night in the studio.
That afternoon dark clouds started moving in. Do you see the angry face on the horizon in the picture below. I didn't have my camera when I first saw the eyes in the sky so they had closed up a bit by the time I took this picture.
In the picture below there's a beam of sunlight shining through above the antenna on the water tower. The beam is hitting the clouds at the top right of the picture making them pink.
It's the time of year for storms again. Today we had rain and this evening there was thunder and lightening. Oklahoma had the first tornado (that I have heard) of the season. 
...walking out in my yard to see the rest of the cloud I see this to the west...
...Fluffy white clouds on top with the brilliant orange from the sunset...
...the south end of the west cloud had straighter lines...
...in the darker blue/gray area on the horizon, lightening was visible...
...click on any of the pictures to get a larger view.
After taking the pictures I go back into the house to look at them on the computer. While sitting there I see the radar screen on one of the TV stations with the weatherman interrupting the scheduled programing. I turn up the volume and hear that Wichita is getting pelted with huge hailstones. These were coming from this beautiful cloud that I was taking pictures of...
Grandson at his outfield position...
...chasing after a grounder that got by him.
Here he is getting the batting helmet on getting ready to bat.
He's still swinging high and fast. Still needing more practice.
A good attentive stance in the outfield.
You'll have to click on this one to see him clearly, he's throwing a ball back in to the pitcher. The scoreboard is in the lower right hand corner and shows a score of 2 to 6 with home being 2. Also note the corner of my umbrella in the picture and the field lights being on. We had intermittent sprinkles up to sometime in the 4th or 5th inning. Then the wind picked up a bit and lightening was getting closer.
I loaded my chairs and things up in my carrier and headed off home. The game was called, I not sure what the score was. Shortly after I arrived home the wind really picked up. I open the inside front door thinking I was going to go move my porch plants closer to the house. The wind and rain hitting the storm door was like a power washer. The way the glass was moving from the pressure of the wind and rain scared me so I closed the inner door and hoped my plants would do well. After the wind died down I went and checked on things and found a cooler had blown from the porch into the back lawn. Some of the soffit siding had blown down and my griddle for my grill had blown from on top of the porch frig clear out to the edge of my garden. It had blown over or past the pool, it's deck and the shower house to land at the edge of a zucchini start. Later another storm blew in and we had a brief bout of hail....
It didn't last long at all but we got quite a bit of rain. Can you see the water in my driveway? That's where they've been tossing my newspaper.
Check out the water coming off my roof. I have a rock garden where this water comes down.
Well, I've only had to water my newly planted garden once. Now I just hope it doesn't get flooded out.
...my poor pool. I'll get out there with the pump later and see if I can find a hole. I patched one hole on top of the ring near the ladder the second year, so a hole isn't a real problem if I can find it.
My Mockingbird was out their singing away this morning when I checked out the garden. The garden didn't appear to have any damage.
I was trying to get a better picture of the bird when he all of sudden hopped up in the air, then back down to the post. The first time he did this I missed getting a shot, but I caught him the second time. I hadn't seen him do this before. He did it several more times before flying off.
On around the backside of the house I see something that catches my eye.
How strange! The last time I was out at night and walked under the motion sensitive light I noticed that the left bulb was out. I wonder why the lens fell off? Very strange indeed.
Other than the pool, we didn't fair to poorly from this summer storm. I'm sure there will be more to come that leave me standing at my window wondering how my gardens are holding up. Farmers endure this feeling year after year. I have a picture of my great grandparents standing in a field of wheat up to their waists and on the back of the picture is a note saying that this crop was hailed down the next day.
I had been saying that this particular tree needed to be cut down, it hadn't been looking so good. Only recently had it sprouted any green leaves...
I'm just glad that the wind that took it down blew it the direction that it did or it could've done damage to my car or my shed & house. The neighbor's fence has been in bad shape for a while. Just last week I had driven a short metal fence post in to support the post that is down in the photo below. I haven't been out to see what became of the metal post, whether it's bent or just laid over in the water soaked ground.
This flattened spot in my Day Lilies is where my Aloe plant and chairs ended up. I wasn't able to get the Aloe to safety before the storm and the chairs were suppose to be bungee'd to the metal post.
After the first round blew through the clouds looked soft and bumpy....
...later they got to looking a little more scrambled.
Is there and angry face in the clouds below?
I think the next one looks rather ominous, like there's a reptilian eye peering out.
But as every cloud is said to have a silver lining there is good to be found after storms if only you look for it. These tiny yellow flowers had their first bloom of the season after the storm.
Anita, the trees fared well in all the wind and rain!
Can you see the little green sprouts poking up here and there? The cucumbers are planted along the edge of the pallet fence.
See the tiny green tomato?
I was also greeted by two wild rabbits. They appear to be quite young yet, juveniles. I can't see that they've eaten anything from the garden yet, but if they do too much damage I'll have to see about putting up a rabbit fence.
Later grandkids came over and got in the pool for the first swim of the season.
I hadn't got the skimmer set up so there was a little more than usual floating on the surface.
Surprisingly it wasn't as cold as I thought it would be. It was cold when you first got in but you warmed up to it pretty quickly.
I didn't get any pictures of the clouds coming in, but the way it was starting to look, I got the kids out of the pool and everything put away just about the right time. They had time to get all dried and dressed and for their mother to pick them up before the rain and hail came. We had some marble sized hail with the first storm front and the second front dropped smaller hail. I hope the garden has faired well, I guess I'll find out when I check it tomorrow. I had a loaf of bread making in the bread maker while the kids were out swimming. After giving all the grandkids at least one slice of hot buttery bread I hardly had enough for sandwiches tomorrow, which is why I was making it.
So I had to make a second loaf, which K-Monster probably would've eaten all on his own if I would have let him. I may have to make another loaf tomorrow.
After showing her what to do I pretty much let her do the arraignment all on her own.
K-Monster and I drove posts to make the fence with pallets for my cucumbers to climb, and BW (who is now to be known as B-rad, which is what he said they call him at school) laid out the paths between the beds. K-Monster, KP1 and I then laid down newspaper and boards to walk on in the paths.
KP1 had a pumpkin plant from a school project that we planted on the backside of the pallet.
I prefer to plant in beds, I have no luck with rows, I loose them. I bought six tomato plants. There wasn't much of a choice. Two of them are yellow tomatoes, I know nothing about these. The others are two different varieties of Roma. I've planted zucchini, cucumber, carrots, okra, lettuce, spinach, cabbage, watermelon, cantaloupe and onion. Some of these are probably in too late, but, oh well, I'm giving them a go anyway. I just realized that I haven't gotten any bell pepper plants.
The Mulberry trees are loaded this year and the birds are really liking it.
More storms moving in tonight.
I still have to get the pool set up, but I did get the area cleared, I'll see about doing this in the next few days.
