A Gully Washer...Good ol' Midwestern Storm
This day started out calmly (it started rather early for me, as a matter of fact...somewhere around 04:15) and quietly as I spent the first couple hours in the office planning the day and how I was going to get everything done - or at least a few things - along with some fun kid time.
By 07:30 Joerg and Patrick were both up and my morning silence was over. I started right off with Patrick's room cleaning - similar in magnitude to scaling Mount Everest - followed immediately by the cleaning of the play room - more like K2 - and by the time we got all that done it was time for a few quick errands and a trip to the park. Alas, our trip to the park was short-circuited by the threat of rain (it had already started to sprinkle while we were running errands) so we shifted our plans to Pizza Putt (a local indoor fun house with pizza, mini golf, arcade, climbing structure...you probably get the picture). While we were there (and, of course, at the same time we were planning to leave) the rain came down hard.
As we drove the three or so miles from Pizza Hutt to our house we experienced blinding rain, hailstones (about the size of summer peas), and wind (including a tree limb down across the road). It rained so hard that we couldn't even see the river as we drove over it - the only way I knew we were over the river was because that length of bridge is paved and the rest of the road is dirt.
I raced home to get the car in the garage before the hail turned my chariot into a golf ball. The car survived just fine (althought Patrick was a little freaked out). I'm no so sure, however, about the more delicate parts of my hard. Joerg had just planted more grass seed in the bald spots (we've been trying desperately to get grass to grow this year) and I'm pretty sure it all got washed away. And our young garden took quite a beating; from the delicate leaves of the lettuces to the tall shoots of the peas, almost everything was flat.
Water came down so hard and so fast that the ground couldn't keep up. We had standing (well, running) water everywhere.
We even had standing water in the front yard (first time in as long as we have lived here).
This video (you can turn down your volume and ignore my narration) shows the amount of water running down our front ditch; a sight which I have never seen.
The second video shows the water movement through our back yard as it traveled from up the hill down to the river below our property.
By now, dinner time, the sun is poking through the thinning clowds and roads are nearly dry. The garden will require a little time to perk back to life, but things are gradually returning to normal. It was fun though. I miss good ol' Midwestern storms with cracking lightning and rumble-your-britches thunder...one of the things I miss about Illinois.
By 07:30 Joerg and Patrick were both up and my morning silence was over. I started right off with Patrick's room cleaning - similar in magnitude to scaling Mount Everest - followed immediately by the cleaning of the play room - more like K2 - and by the time we got all that done it was time for a few quick errands and a trip to the park. Alas, our trip to the park was short-circuited by the threat of rain (it had already started to sprinkle while we were running errands) so we shifted our plans to Pizza Putt (a local indoor fun house with pizza, mini golf, arcade, climbing structure...you probably get the picture). While we were there (and, of course, at the same time we were planning to leave) the rain came down hard.
As we drove the three or so miles from Pizza Hutt to our house we experienced blinding rain, hailstones (about the size of summer peas), and wind (including a tree limb down across the road). It rained so hard that we couldn't even see the river as we drove over it - the only way I knew we were over the river was because that length of bridge is paved and the rest of the road is dirt.
I raced home to get the car in the garage before the hail turned my chariot into a golf ball. The car survived just fine (althought Patrick was a little freaked out). I'm no so sure, however, about the more delicate parts of my hard. Joerg had just planted more grass seed in the bald spots (we've been trying desperately to get grass to grow this year) and I'm pretty sure it all got washed away. And our young garden took quite a beating; from the delicate leaves of the lettuces to the tall shoots of the peas, almost everything was flat.
Water came down so hard and so fast that the ground couldn't keep up. We had standing (well, running) water everywhere.
We even had standing water in the front yard (first time in as long as we have lived here).
This video (you can turn down your volume and ignore my narration) shows the amount of water running down our front ditch; a sight which I have never seen.The second video shows the water movement through our back yard as it traveled from up the hill down to the river below our property.
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