Inside and Out

Feast or famine.  Drought or deluge.  Holy cow!  This storm has been a doozy.  The goat barn has sprung a thousand leaks from where nails have worked loose and, worse, one of the plexiglass panels has a chunk broken out.  Fortunately, it's not over a stall, so it's not an emergency situation.  So far, so good with the trees; only small branches have fallen.  There were times yesterday when it felt like the house was being hit by a battering ram, the wind was that fierce.  I understand over an inch of rain fell in under an hour, and the rain continued most of the day.  With no time for the ground to absorb anything, there were flash floods and standing water everywhere.  Everywhere but here on top of the hill.  The barn, of course, is down at the bottom.

Ralph had the right idea.  He spent most of the afternoon in front of the wood stove.  I spent most of the afternoon stoking the wood stove for Ralph.  Celeste made herself a nest of blankets on the bed instead of taking up residence on my lap, which, for a change, was a good thing.  Perhaps out of boredom after days of indoor confinement, Bessie Anne could not settle anywhere.  "Help me up into my chair, Mom."  "Boost me up onto the couch, Mom."  "I changed my mind.  Mom, I'd rather lie on this couch, please."  "Put the footrest up on the recliner, Mom, I want to be with you."  "Let me out the door, Mom.  No, this door!"  I was up and down like a pogo stick.  (I'm going to change my name to Gertrude.)

I was happy for a break in the rain at sundown, and then I stepped outside.  Gusts of wind nearly took me off my feet.  The bare ground down by the barn was a quagmire and made for treacherous walking even without the wind.  Poppy brushed against me as she pushed her way past to get to her room.  It was like getting slapped with a wet sponge and my pant legs were soaked.  Holding on with one hand to anything I could find, I slipped and slid around the hen house to shut both doors, and accomplished the deed without going down.

It rained throughout the night.  The gutters cannot hold all the water and I could hear the waterfall from the overflow outside the bedroom windows.  It's raining this morning.  It's hard to complain when we need the water so badly, but, if it's not too much to ask, we don't need it all at once.