Tornado in Goderich

We were expecting my oldest daughter and her family to arrive today but were not sure when. So I went ahead and planned dinner to include them. I picked up a BBQ chicken and some artisan nacho chips from the supermarket to make things easy. We had PC vegetarian 'chicken' breasts in the freezer - she loves them - to top up the protein offering should they arrive in time to sit down and eat. While I was out husband got a call saying that they would not be leaving Goderich until after 6:30 pm. My son outlaw's family reunion was still going on. However, they would be coming to drop our granddaughter off for a week of day camp with us.

I called a neighbour over to join us for a before dinner drink and husband invited her to stay for the meal. While we sat out back the sky got dreadfully dark, not for the first time today, and then the wind began to roar through the treetops. The clouds were roiling and threatening but there was no thunder and very little rain. A little katydid landed on the table, blown from it's treetop perch and for half a minute I thought about capturing it for my bug-catching granddaughter to study. But I said, "I am glad they are waiting until later to come. Maybe it will have cleared up by then." Raindrops sent us into the sunporch. The phone rang. "Mom, have you been watching the news? A tornado just went by the place where we are staying in Goderich - we saw it go by! There are trees down everywhere and we are looking down over the cliff at the salt mine - it doesn't look good. All the power is out and there has been rain and hail. I am not sure when we will get to leave." "Stay safe" I said, "And text me updates."

I made the corn and peach chutney everyone likes so much with jalapeño and basil from the garden which we had as salsa with the nacho chips. I heated up the chicken and cooked up a few green and yellow beans. We had sliced and cherry tomatoes from the garden as well, some store cucumber (my vines were parched in July while we were away) and a small lentil salad from Costco (I thought I picked up the couscous salad but got the lentil by mistake). I made two peach and blueberry galettes today so we cut into one of them for dessert - yum, especially with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

A text message let us know that they were on their way after some delays getting out of Goderich. We checked the Weather Channel for news of the event - Good Grief! One man died and several had been injured. There was tremendous damage through the town, including the market square where the kids had been only hours earlier. They arrived at length, tired from the trauma of the day, with photos of uprooted trees and hail half the size of the palm of your hand. Granddaughter was carried in already sleeping. Her mom and brother stayed overnight while her dad went home to TO to feed their cat. It took awhile to settle our grandson down and it is now far too late for me to be up. We all have to get up early tomorrow morning for camp. I am going to sleep feeling sympathy for the people of Goderich and joy that our folks came through unscathed.