Wild Weekend

It feels surreal to be "getting back to normal" after the weekend storm wee just had! For a few minutes this past Saturday, I thought we might need to evacuate from our house. So much rain fell in such a short time that the ground became completely saturated and earth began sliding all over the place. I have never seen a storm so powerful right next to my house! At one point part of the ditch that runs through my front yard came loose and clogged the drain that runs under the road. Water piled up against our fence and began to wash in large quantities over the road. I was so thankful when the whole neighborhood showed up and went waist deep in the stream to unclog the drain - saving theroad. Near our house (about six feet from the foundation) we have a retaining wall that started to go, tumbling blocks into the stream. Behind the house water flowed down in glassy sheets, every gopher hole ever dug sprang a leak! Two more huge mudslides just on our little road made getting out impossible for hours. Then we found our two main routes into town totally closed with firefighters standing around enforcing things!

Today things are clear and sunny and warm and the flowers are full and perky! It is a wild turn around. The two main roads I mentioned earlier are still in bad shape, losing ground underneath them. But they have opened them both as one lane roads while the county road crew considers the options.

As soon as the storm subsided and things were relatively stable, I went out and stocked up on staples and bought a new shovel! The experience made me realize that we are sorely underprepared for a quick departure. I will take some time this week to try and have a better emergency plan in place. If the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan was not enough to make me get my act together, a huge storm in my backyard sure did the trick!