The winds are howling above us and I am petrified. Tornado watches have been issued and a Tornado Warning is 25 miles away.
This morning I hiked down into the creek bottom to take a quick look at the change from the day before.
It was 50 degrees and foggy in the low lying areas. The driveway had melted into mush and the valley still had ice on all of the trails.
And just above the creek... it was eerily quiet without hardly a whisper of noise.
The fog eventually lifted and the winds shifted to the south clearing most of the fog as the day warmed up.
The mules moved to the south fence line where the neighbor's hillside and forest kept them protected.
And they seemed to sense that this was where they should be.
As dark fell and the winds picked up, I felt very uncomfortable. The temperature was all wrong, the winds were soft but wrong...the mules felt it also.
When I fed them, they snorted and trotted back and forth as if I was offering them poisonous snakes instead of hay. The horse bucked and spun in circles as if she were telling me something.
I waited until everyone was calmed down and then talked with each of them. Yes, I do that. I talk to my mules. There was a sense of discomfort in the air yet a sense of them wishing to be close to me.
I don't know how to explain it, they hugged me with their presence. Sunshine and Sundance stood on each side of me with a mouthful of hay yet not chewing. Just standing with their heads ... one on my right shoulder and one on my left.
And now at 9:12, I am seeing lightening ...
and the sky is howling and flashing....
and the tree tops are beginning to scream...