No Place for Sissies

We once invited a French exchange student to share our lives for six weeks one summer. Her first question after she deposited her luggage in the bedroom was, “Do you have tornadoes here?”

I paused a moment and answered thoughtfully, “Not many, and we always have plenty of warning.”  I reminded her she was very brave to fly from Paris through several U.S. airports.  If she could do that by herself, she shouldn’t worry about Kansas twisters.

The next day we walked around the section surrounding our house to introduce her to our country neighborhood.  She promptly spotted orange construction fencing around a pile of rubble in the east pasture.  That triggered a heavily accented, “What happened there?

“Oh, a tornado blew through last spring and took out our well house.  That’s all that remains,” I responded. “Look at that cottonwood lying  in the field.  It used to be right here by the road.”

Her brown eyes drilled into my green peepers as she demanded, “Did you know it was coming?”

We stopped walking while I considered her question.  “What? The tornado? Well . . . not really.  The weatherman missed on that one.”  It was a good thing Tucker, a golden retriever/greyhound cross walking beside us , couldn’t report.  He’d been caught in the storm, and when we found him afterward, his long yellow fur was entangled with leaves and grass.  We never knew exactly where he was when the winds hit.  What we did know was that he didn’t want to be outside in storms after that.

“But . . . I thought you said you had plenty of warning.” Imagine her strong French accent mixed with agitation as she confronted me.

I thought that was the end of our storm talks until we were driving down Old Forty toward Hays one morning.  Alexandra immediately zeroed in on the twisted windmill on the south side of the road and the ¼ mile of mutilated tree row on the north side of the highway. “So what happened there?”

“Oh that. That was a tornado a few years back.  It’s been a while.  Nothing to worry about.”

I’m pretty sure I heard something rude mumbled in a foreign language, but I ignored it and reminded her we don’t have many tornadoes around here. 

Another day during her visit, we headed toward Ogallah on Old Forty.  I’ve driven that road a thousand times and never thought about the farmstead surrounded by torn and damaged elms.  Our exchange student didn’t miss a beat before turning to me and asking in her quaint manner, “Another tornado that doesn’t happen very often around here?”   

“Right,” I smiled tightly,” realizing I didn’t want to drive her home on the Interstate that passed a farm twice damaged by tornadoes over the last decade.  I also didn’t want to take her south of Ellis where she could view the foundation of a farmstead where a tornado sucked the house off while a family sheltered in the basement.

Our exchange student flew back to France without experiencing a single weather front that forced us to cower and pray in the basement.  Looking back, I’m certain she experienced  nothing more  disconcerting than a few hot July days; however, she made me reconsider life on the western Kansas prairie.  It’s not a place for sissies.

What I Took for Granted

            For twelve years, I have enjoyed another person’s dream and labor, taking it for granted day after day and year after year.  In 1961, this man and his wife built a house, no—a home, overlooking Big Creek in far eastern Trego County.  Landscape influenced every decision that young family made as they positioned their home to welcome sunrise and enjoy sunset as well as view Big Creek and its abundant wildlife and trees. 

            From the first time I saw this then vacant house, I knew I wanted to call it home and savor its landscape.  I loved the well-planned southern shelter belt, the privacy surrounding cedars provided, as well as cottonwoods, locust, and ash trees winding along the nearby creek east and west of the house.

            Over the years, I learned where hawks, herons, mockingbirds, cardinals, wrens, and dove nested and looked forward each year to watching new families hatch and fledge.  I knew the pine where owls sometimes whispered love songs to one another.  I knew the cedar where squirrels ran to hide after they had ambushed our dogs. 

Each exit from and return to the drive at the top of the hill meant a three mile view of the creek west and east.  That winding belt of trees changed predictably with the seasons so we had pale then dark green belts that altered to yellow then orange and finally stark branches in winter. 

Like many folks, I take what I have for granted, and I assumed this beloved landscape would welcome me all the years I live here.  All that changed May 23 when a series of tornadoes not only destroyed many farmsteads in our neighborhood, but also the landscape that residents expected to see each morning. 

            So far, we have counted thirty-four uprooted trees the family who dreamed and built our farmstead planted by hand and cared for so they grew to protect this place.  The protection worked because the trees took the brunt of the storm and left our home dented but standing solidly in place.

            Mature trees along the creek a mile to the west and a mile to the east also fared poorly.  They now look like a snaggle-toothed hockey player smiling broadly.  Huge cottonwoods standing sentinel along the creek for decades snapped and shattered, leaving splintered arms and roots in grotesque supplication to the sky that first nurtured them, then splintered them.

            Sounds of humans cleaning up farmyards and fields pulse through the air as tractors, trucks, and saws clean up damage to buildings and shelter belts.  Soon the reverberation of building and repairing houses, barns, and outbuildings will replace the noise of tearing down and hauling away ripped and torn metal and wood.  

            The hawk nest and heron nests are gone as is the cedar that sheltered warring squirrels.  A new landscape formed not by a nurturing creek and warm sun, but by Mother Nature at her worst wends its way along the creek.  This landscape will not recover quickly with the artificial sounds of human tools.   Its silent replacement will come over decades, perhaps centuries.