Just the Beginning

I had not left the computer yesterday morning before the wind picked up and the first raindrops hit.  In what seemed like minutes we were in the middle of a full-fledged storm.  Bess wisely opted to stay in the house at feeding time.  Leaning into the wind as I walked, it seemed better to leave the chickens in their coop rather than let them out to get plastered up against the fence by the gale.  They are dear little things, but don't always show good sense when it comes to weather.  I could hear the goats before I was halfway to the barn; the storm had them panicked and they were yelling to beat the band.  Leaving Cindy, first in line, alone on the stand for a minute as I ran around to let the others out, she screamed and screamed until I was back at her side.  The metal panels of the roof billowed like sails and I feared they'd be torn loose.  Rain beating down and wind howling, the noise was so intense I could not hear the sound of milk hitting the bucket.  It seemed so loud at times I felt I could not hear my own thoughts.  Hating rain as they do, the goats preferred being wet to coming in under shelter and all that noise.

Back in the house with the comfort of a good fire in the stove, fingers crossed for trees and power, I watched leaves whip past the windows like missiles.  Joel and I talked in the afternoon.  I was sure it was a typo on the weather report when it showed a predicted twelve inches of rain in our area from this series of storms, but Joel said that was what he'd found on the national weather website.  (Perhaps I got rid of that old boat too soon.)

In the late afternoon the wind dropped and the rain stopped.  There were even a few minutes of sunshine before I had to go out to the coops and barn.  Trees and animals had come through unscathed.  We're to get a break today and I will restock the firewood in preparation for the next wave due tonight (although it's pretty windy with some rain this morning).  If those guys know their business, yesterday was the lightest in a series of three storms through until Monday.  Good grief, it was just the beginning.