A Very Blustery Day

What strange weather we've had today.  I went over to visit my neighbor for a bit and we heard on the Weather Channel that nearly the entire East Coast was under severe thunderstorm warnings and tornado watches until 9pm tonight (it's 7pm as I post this.)  It was a record-breaking day for low pressure systems since 1968 if I remember correctly what I heard on tv.

The wind was blowing so much I thought I'd better hurry outside and get some shots of our fall color before all the leaves were blown off the trees.  Between the wind and heavy rains, there won't be much left by tomorrow.

This is the big dogwood tree in my backyard.

And the view over to the ridge beyond ours.  The golden tops of the poplars are really pretty this year.

I spotted this big hornet's nest over the fenceline on my neighbor's property.  We were really plagued by large bald-faced hornets this year.  I couldn't leave any apples or tomatoes sitting outside.

They say if the hornet's nests are high up in the trees, we will have lots of snow this year.  Let's hope not, because this one was way up there!

The wind was blowing so hard, Little Boy Blue's wattles were blowing sideways!  He was a bit irritable today with all the wind blowing his tail feathers the wrong way everytime he turned around.  He was very nervous and paced a lot.

Down the fence line in the brushy corner of the yard, I found the chickens working on a new dusting hole.  I'm going to have to come back and fill this one with rocks so they do not create a back door for predators to come inside.

The neighbor's horses came over to say hello.  I gave them a lot of apples last month, so they are usually happy to see me now.

This is the view back toward the main road.  The bees were very busy today with the temps hitting 83 degrees.  Once the rain came through it quickly dropped to 60 degrees.

You can see the storm clouds approaching from the Southwest.  It wasn't long after we quit snapping pictures that the rain and gusty winds came through.  It is still raining pretty hard right now.