The Studebaker Waterfall has grown (yard story in progr

1 of 13: This is what our yard looked like minutes after the EF5 tornado went through; but this destruction is NOTHING compared to what lay ahead of us in Joplin.

2 of 13: This is our son,Travis, raising the flag at his home (totalled destroyed_

3 of 13: Our lap pool in progress.Richard poured a foundation for the pool to rest in.

4 of 13: Pool in progress.

5 of 13: More progress; the telephone poles were ones ripped out of the ground in Joplin. We are trying to make the deck resemble a wharf.

6 of 13: One of the trees that went down became a place for us to have someone carve faces into it.

7 of 13: This is what we did with one of the elms that were lost in our yard. For some reason, it was not uprooted in the tornado, but died with in the next month. We had it cut down and then a koi fish carved into it. The koi and the stump are one piece.

8 of 13: After it was carved, we painted it, spread pebbles around it and poured a polymer over it to resemble a creek bed.

9 of 13: This weary man is my sweet husband and the swinging bed he built for me on the back deck.

10 of 13: We are in the midst of a terrible drought, but somehow this iris bloomed in late July.

11 of 13: This sweet face is my granddaughter Chloe giving instructions on how to paddle around our big pond.

12 of 13: The new pool-deck.

13 of 13: This was our Weeping Willow that we had managed to save about 3 years ago when it was ripped up by straight line winds. But after the tornado, like the elm, it died suddenly. So we made lemonade from our lemons.