Now that's a big hailstone

A one inch hailstone fell at about 1 pm this afternoon...it was quite a sight.  The hail lasted about 10 minutes....we are NOT used to storms like this.

Please ponder for a moment.....

that the 12 members of my family are hunkered down in a 900 square foot house for who knows how long, while a snowstorm traps us all inside.

Please, send me your thoughts-what should we do-so that at the end of the storm-- we still have 12 members in the family......

Hurricane Ike Damage, in Central New York

Yesterday was a sweltering, humid 90 degree day here in Central New York. Very unusual for this part of New York in September.

Well, last evening the weatherman said that the remnants of hurricane Ike would be blowing through to usher in a cold front in the middle of the night.

We were told that we could have wind gusts up to 60 mph.

That doesn't seem to bad. That is a lot less that hurricane winds. But when that wind began to whip, at 2:00 am, it woke me up, and I thought, "Boy, this is a little unsettling." At 2:30, when the wind blew our screen and window fan out of the window and into the front yard, I was beginning to freak out.

At 2:45 my husband and I watched this huge maple tree break in half. It took the wires to the house across the street that is being renovated-with a lot of noise and sparking.

I now have an idea of a storm that has 60 mph winds-I can't begin to imagine winds faster than this- and I know that I don't want to ever experience winds like this again.