No politics tonight- we just had a blow as a storm came through earlier. 60-70 mph gusts. Trees down but we were lucky; we only lost a bunch of good sized branches. One of them ripped away from our linden tree and ended up in the neighbor’s yard 50 yards away

Quiet now. We’re preparing for a morning of picking up sticks and branches. Not exactly on our bingo card for the 4th, but life had other plans than ours.

One funny aspect of the evening…. before the storm hit, the wind was picking up and I ran out the side door, crossed the driveway and removed the spinning, decorative windmill from its pole. On my way back to the house, I looked up and saw our little 11 pound dog, staring at me through the storm door. She’s fearless in storms; they’ve never bothered her, but she was growling, whining and yipping in such a way that I swore she was telling me, through her canine vocalizations, “Get your ass back in the house, you stupid idiot.”.

My wife and I have always thought that she herds us.