Yikes! A twister!

And the wind took
The ground shook
And me and my baby traded one last look
The heavens squawled
Push come to shove
Ain't no escaping the tornado of love

from "Tornado of Love" by The Rainmakers

We got a pretty bad storm last night, with plenty of rain and lightning. There was also some "rotation" in this storm, so the local weather guys were on the air for a good couple of hours. We weren't too happy about that, because they made us miss "The Office." Grrrrr!

Sad to say, when I watched the news this morning, a tornado touched down last night in the nearby town of Nappanee. It looked like some pretty bad damage, and tonight they said on the news that 250 buildings, whether homes or businesses, were damaged, and 150 of them were severely damaged or completely destroyed. The good news? Although there were injuries, no one was badly hurt and no one died. The paper is reporting that it was possibly an EF3 (Extended Fujita). It's unusual to have a tornado in October, but it happened a few years ago, too. Just goes to show that severe weather can happen at any time!

I've written about our pair of red-breasted nuthatches. I asked my friend at work, Mary, to ask her husband if he sees them a lot. He's an avid birdwatcher, and I always pass along interesting sightings to him through Mary. Anyhoo, John told Mary that I'm really lucky to have them--usually they just migrate through here, but sometimes they stick around. And he's never seen one! I was really surprised by that, because he's seen so many, and also because they're a little more rare than I realized, at least around here. I was reading up on them, and a website mentioned that their call sounded like a "tiny tin horn." Mary and I got such a kick out of that!