Nature throws a fit at Willows Ranch

Last Wednesday at 2:20 p.m., Mother Nature let loose with a small hissy fit at the Willows Ranch on Indian Ford Road.

Ranch manager Allan Godsiff was working near the ranch buildings and the afternoon wind was blowing as it often does. Godsiff became aware of an unusual noise and looked toward the outdoor arena near the boundary with the forest. A whirlwind was kicking up dust at the south end of arena near a small shed.

"I couldn't see the shed," he said. "Then there was a big crash and I thought crikey, what was that? When the dust settled a few minutes later, I saw the shed 25 feet from where it had been, smashed to bits."

The shed, which had been built by ranch owners Jim and Judi Knapp many years ago as a playhouse for their children, took out several arena rails and came to rest against another fence. It just missed the electric fence unit that powers fences around the large ranch pastures. Two of the walls were flung about 10 feet farther and lay flat on the ground, with their glass windows intact.

Godsiff said he spent the rest of the afternoon looking around the ranch and wondering about the what-ifs. There were no livestock, people or machinery near the site. Had the whirlwind hit anywhere else on the ranch it would have meant major destruction or injury.

The Knapps, while harboring sentimental feelings toward the old playhouse, aren't planning on rebuilding.