I was outside in the pasture with Zinnia when the emergency alarm in my cellphone sounded with an imminent Tornado warning.

The message from the National Weather Service was urgent, it said a tornado was heading towards us and we should get into a basement immediately. “Now!”

I looked up at the sky, it was plenty dark and moving up the road. Tornadoes are very rare up here, but we have been getting some lately.

At the same time, the donkeys and she sheep started running out of the pasture and towards the Pole Barn, where they all sought shelter. Normally, the donkeys stop to see if I have a treat for them ( I usually do). This time, they ran into the Pole Barn.

This told me the alerts for real. I looked on my lightning app and saw hundred of strikes all around us, more than I can remember ever seeing.

Maria and I filled the bathtub, got out the flashlights, turned off and unplugged the computers, put some food into the basement, and went out to sit on the porch.

The alarms kept coming, but the tornado didn’t come to us, we didn’t lose power and were not struck by the scores of lightning bolts striking the ground all around. We don’t know what happened around us.

The thunder was loud and continuous. The storm looked vast, dark, and furious. But we could see it tiptoeing around us.

I looked out the back and the donkeys were in the field grazing. We watched a Coen Brothers movie, “Brother, Where Art Thou.”

I think the Weather Channel would do well to buy a donkey. If anything is coming near us that we should know about, they hear it first