Feeling Like Dorothy

Holy flying cows it's windy today! The wind actually kicked up last night and we heard all kinds of banging during the sleeping hours. This morning I discovered that Katie's swing set took flight and is in the middle of the driveway. The swing set is made by Little Tikes and is all durable plastic. It doesn't look like it was damaged, but we have to wait for the wind to die down before we attempt to set it back up.

Instead of walking up the driveway to open the gate, I drove the van--I didn't want to blow away. The wind speed was about 40 mph with gusts to 55 mph. As I mentioned before our gate consists of two metal panels and each is about 9' wide and 4' high. The panels are attached to the end posts about 1' off of the ground. I usually open only one side of the gate and when it's windy it is difficult for me to swing the panel open. Well this morning the wind was working with me. I unlocked the gate and started swinging open a panel when the wind caught it. I hung on to the gate and went for a little ride as my feet skidded along. I was feeling a little like Dorothy from "Wizard of Oz." Thank goodness there is a metal stopper to prevent the gate from opening more than 90 degrees. If it wasn't there the gate would have done a 180 and slammed into the fence with me still hanging on. If the wind was going in the opposite direction I definitely would not have been able to open the gate.