Tornado Damage in Spivey, KS

A little too close to home

Earlier this week, my sister-in-law sent this photo, with the quip "A new look for my office." A recent storm -- probably a tornado -- damaged one of the buildings of the oilfield supply company where she works in Spivey, Kansas.

Spivey is a wide spot on Highway 42, about 45 miles southwest of Wichita. My brother and sister-in-law live about five miles from there.

Kathy wrote that the grade school roof was also damaged. Parts of it blew into an old house across the street and broke out windows. She said that the path of damage suggests a tornado touchdown.

The damage to the Jayhawk building, etc., occurred later on the same night that a tornado threw a car off the road near Cunningham, KS, just 20 miles or so northwest of Spivey. The young couple in the car was killed. That tornado was "¾ of a mile wide, stayed on the ground for 48 minutes and traveled 21 miles," according to Channel 12 Eyewitness News (link above.)

The night before, another storm took off the entire roof of the old high school building in Spivey, which had been used as a truck stop until a few years ago. Kathy wrote that the roof landed in the highway and against a light pole.

Dwight and Kathy have a good storm shelter, and I hope they are using it when these wild storms are hitting so close to home!

Related post:
Close Call With a Tornado

Someone's Shopping List

Just a bit of harmless rubbernecking

The purpose of a shopping list, in my case, is to remind me of what I need because my mind may go blank when I enter the store. Overwhelmed by all the merchandise, I'm likely to forget what I came to buy.

Generally I need just a word or two for each item, and often the words are abbreviated. For example I might write "deod." (which stands for "deodorant") or "pdr. sugar" (which means "powdered sugar.")

I found a list in my shopping basket this week that used a much different style. The author wrote the list in progressively longer phrases. The only thing abbreviated was "SF" which probably meant "Sugar Free. Here it is:

WalMart
picture frames!
2- 8x10
1- 10x10 or 17 (Dad's Navy pic)
SF - Fudgsicles
Bananas
SF - angel food cake
SF - Strawberry glaze

Penney's
pick up green rug for around commode!
Other rug 31" X 52"

Goody's
get pants for Mom for Martha (green or pink)
Maybe large top for me (petite large)

Sally's Beauty Supply
Get 2 New Image Instant Freeze
Probably get 1 New Image Super Hold, depending.

This list was lost at WalMart -- the top stop on the page. I hope the writer remembered all she needed at the rest of her stops.

Birdies in the Treetops (and Elsewhere)

Random bird stories

When I was working in the garden yesterday afternoon, I noticed how quiet it was. The only sound was the birds, singing all around the yard. This, I told myself, is why we live in the country.

Blackbirds

The blackbirds must have a nest in the tall grass and bushes along the back fence. Two of them had a fit about Casper, our cat, who was lounging around the garden. They broadcast their warning so well that even I, a human, heard and understood. Casper is such a twerp that I was ready to laugh if they dive-bombed him. If they had been mockingbirds, they would have, but since they were blackbirds, they just "chirred" from the tree above him.

Mystery bird

A bird has been trying to fly into the windows of the house for days now. It just doesn't give up. It approaches the windows again and again and tries to find a way inside.

Yesterday, I had my car by the garden to unload some stuff, and the little bird wanted to get inside my car. It flew up to the windows repeatedly and fluttered around. I tried to get its picture, but it wouldn't let me get very close. Here it is, sitting on the side view mirror.

It has a reddish breast and a brown back. It's not nearly large enough to be a robin, unless it's a juvenile. Also, its back is not gray like a robin. I've looked through the bird books for an hour and I still can't decide what it is. I think it may be a female since they're often more drab.

Wrens

A wren has nested in the wren house that hangs on the trellis where the grapevine grows. I really must move that house next year. It's along the sidewalk, and the poor little wren thinks she has to fly off her nest every time someone goes by. Some days she isn't bothered much, but when we're all home and working around the house and yard, the little wren has a very bad day.

Hummingbirds

The hummingbirds let me know this spring that I needed to set up their feeders. One evening, I looked outside to see a hummingbird flying around the shepherd's hook where the feeders had been last year. It was obvious that he expected to find food there, so I quickly brewed some syrup, cooled it down, and filled the feeders. They hadn't been in place five minutes before the little hummingbird found them.

Birdies in the Treetops

"Birdies in the treetops" is a phrase from a little song we sang in Sunday School, many years ago. The rest of it goes like this:

The birdies in the treetops sing their song;
The angels chant their chorus all day long;
The flowers in the garden blend their hue;
So why shouldn't I, why shouldn't you, praise Him too?

(Author unknown)

Black Homesteaders At Ewing, NE

Monument to be dedicated

Marathon Pundit sent me a news article tonight that he thought I might enjoy. The article, originally published in the Omaha World Herald, was about black homesteaders who settled near Ewing, Nebraska.

World Herald writer Paul Hammel relates how an IRS agent, Dennis Vossberg of Plainview, NE, learned of the black settlers and became so interested in their history that he finally wrote a book.

After the book was published, readers began donating money for a monument in honor of the black homesteaders of Bliss, Nebraska. The monument has been placed in a small country cemetery west of Ewing, where about 20 of the settlers are buried in unmarked graves.

Bliss, Nebraska, named after its postmaster, was a small town located near Goose Lake in southeast Holt County, near the Wheeler county line. The black homesteaders at Bliss were freed slaves.

It's believed that the black settlers arrived in the early 1880s. They were misled by dishonest land agents who told them that the land around Goose Lake had veins of coal. The land that they settled on was difficult to farm. Depending on the weather, it was a wet marshland, a dry sandy wasteland, or anything between. The last black settlers at Bliss left around 1918.

During the terrible dust storms of the 1930s, the wind blew out a small black cemetery at Bliss, exposing caskets and bones. Three local ranchers moved the remains with horse-drawn wagons to Valley View Cemetery, southwest of Ewing, and reburied them. Valley View Cemetery already contained about ten unmarked graves of black homesteaders.

The identities of some graves are known, but others are unknown. The monument, to be dedicated on Memorial Day, lists family names of the black homesteaders of Bliss.

Many thanks to John, aka Marathon Pundit, for sharing this very interesting article.

Source: Nebraska's Black Homesteaders: Forgotten graves mystery no more

Play a Word Game To Donate Rice

Help the UN World Food Program

http://www.freerice.com/index.php

Visit the above link to increase your word power and help feed the world's hungry. For each correct answer you give, 20 grains of rice are donated to the UN World Food Program by a sponsor. Visit the options page to customize the game to your liking.

I have a hard time quitting this little word game, once I start to play. I hope you'll give it a try.