We’ve Got Weather

from Susan/Sarah...

Well, I was going to blog a bit about the garden and the yard, since it’s the time of year when everything is looking pretty good. Even mine, and I don’t go overboard with the gardening thing, since allergies have something to say about that. Ahem.

Here’s some of the flowers in containers on my deck, last week.

And then it started to rain.

And rain. And rain.

We’re in Maryland, in an area where it hardly ever floods. Until this week. The rains came from nowhere...well, I’m sure they came from somewhere but I wasn’t paying any attention, having lots of work to do, so I was busy tap-tapping away on my keyboard, when I looked up...and noticed it was raining pretty hard. Sheets of it. Later, when lightning cracked and thunder started boom-shaka-lakking, I leaped out of my chair and ran downstairs. The dog scurried under the nearest sofa, and I stood at the door watching the deluge in the street and the yard, and while lightning flashed and thunder rolled like bowling balls, I thought about where the husband and sons were in relation to cars, roads, and various routes home. And I resisted the urge to regress, er, resort, to a time-tested technique that worked for me when I was a kid in Upstate New York: I would put on rubber-soled sneakers and wind as many rubber bands in my hair as possible (great look), then settle down on the window seat to watch the storm. Taking out all those rubber bands later was a pain, especially extracting them from curly hair, but it was worth it: I was safe, so the method clearly worked.

This week it wasn’t just one storm that sent me bolting from my chair, it was one storm after another for four days or so, big, lusty, crashing, violent deluge storms, day and night, several inches of rain a day. Locally and throughout the area, there was flooding, and several routes closed down. We’re just outside of D.C., which was a mess. A friend’s son parked his new car outside a museum, and came out a few hours later to find it sloshing up to its side mirrors in water. Many people had losses and were evacuated, and for many this has been a very, very serious situation. I appreciate that, and I feel for them. There’s a helpless feeling when Nature takes over, yanks life out of your control, and all you can do is sit and watch.

We are fortunate to be perched on the highest point in our county. Roads were closed, but we were okay, and the basement stayed dry. We watched our yard turn into a water theme park, complete with mud slide, waterfall, wave pool, a lake, a crescent-shaped river, and a log flume (for squirrels). I think we had a tunnel of love flowing for the rabbits under the deck.

The dog, a fearless little Westie who cowers at nothing (except the vacuum cleaner, but anything that devours and growls like that is worth avoiding), kept running out on the deck to bark at the thunder. But being low to the ground, she won’t go out willingly in wet grass. This creates logistical problems....so more than once I tugged her outside on a leash in drenching rain.

When I wasn’t watching the back hill dissolve into rivulets and craters, or dragging the dog outside in the downpour, or worrying about the teenage son with the car, a job to go to, friends to visit, and a sense of immortality undaunted by oh, a little rain, I did get some work done.

I know it was a terrible series of storms for many, and our problems were few in the scope of things around here. We lost electricity and internet more than once, but I had no problem getting to work (just down the hall, turn right), and I enjoyed the steady thrumming of rain on the roof. There’s something very peaceful about sitting down with notebook and pens (had to turn that computer off!) to do some writing, and it’s equally nice to sit down with a wonderful story and do some reading. I often listen to music when I read or write, but not this week. Rain is its own music.

I was reminded how good it is to do without the rush-rush of an electronic lifestyle, to go without electricity, internet, easily accessed computer files, and just to sit quietly and listen to my own thoughts, without the extra buzziness that we so often allow into our days. So for me, those storms were a little gift of simplicity in very wet packaging. I welcome storms, and snowstorms too, for that quietude. But I always put on my Keds just in case.

~Susan

p.s. it's sunny today!  (with thunderstorms called for this afternoon....)

A lake forming in our back yard.

Not a Highland waterfall: the back hill                                                         

Comments

[Patricia Rice]

Fantastic description of that helpless feeling which takes over when Mother Nature reigns. I rather missed thunderstorms while we were living in Charlotte. Now that we're back in the Midwest, they seem to have all gone your way. I swear, we carry drought with us wherever we go... Want to invite me over for a while?

[Susie]

"...and a log flume (for squirrels)"

SO FUNNY! That's all I wanted to say. Stay dry, if you can. -s

[Val Jones]

As a Floridian, my heart goes out to anyone that's in the cross-hairs of Mother Nature since I've been there so often myself. Try to stay dry, but also safe...

[shscott21]

So nice to hear that you and the boys are making such progress on your ark, Susan!

We're in much the same state here in PA -- fortunately, I live on a hill, but all that rainwater still courses down through our yard. We have a moat around the azaleas, and a water park in the basement. Well, we'd said this year we'd make a few improvements...

We're among the lucky ones. There are far too many people in the Philadelphia-NJ area that have been flooded out for the third time in less than a year by overspilling rivers. No, it's not in the same class as New Orleans or Florida after the hurricanes, but it's still far too many damages, headaches, and general muddy mess.

Susan/Miranda

[Nina P]

Hi Susan:

Love your post. I hope your yard recovers.

With you on the helpless feeling that always invades when Nature paints her will across the sky. Can't say I've ever resorted to Keds but I have hidden in a few closets as she attempted to pull my house up from its moorings.

I live in southern Pennsylvania, not far from the Maryland state line. The monsoon has flooded my well and converted the back yard into a pregnant sponge. Last night's deep booming thunderstorm sent my JRT diving under the covers and set our new German Shepard puppy a howling. There was no sleeping after that.

Like a few others here on WW’s, I live high upon a hill. Below us many have experienced flooding. It's hard. You feel so helpless.

Nina, thinking Pat should room with one of us 'east costers' for a few days and scare away the rain.

btw, I love THE SWORD MAIDEN

[talpianna]

Shall we drop by and pick up anyone? I've got a character ark.

[Cathy]

I hope OUR yards recover. I live in Bucks County, PA, and my town is flooded too, our water table is too high and the National Guard has moved in. I leave for Alaska on Sunday. Only in America can you go off on holiday while your town is under something akin to Martial Law.

:o\ Cathy

[Sherrie Holmes]

Rubber bands in the hair and sneakers on the feet??? I love it. I laughed like a hyena reading that, Susan/Sarah!

It also brought back tender memories of how wise mothers are. When I was a kid, we had a really scary thunderstorm. Lightning streaked across the sky, followed immediately by thunder so loud it shook the house. My younger brother and sister were wide-eyed with fright, and I was having a hard time maintaining my brave older sister image.

Mom took us in hand, though. With the next blinding streak of lightning and deafening crack of thunder, she ran to the large picture window in the living room and said, "Oooh, kids, look at the pretty lightning! It's like fireworks on the fourth of July! Come see!"

My mom loved storms. She turned out all the lights in the house so we could see the lightning better, and then gathered us around the picture window to watch the show. Pretty soon we were oohing and aahing right along with Mom. To this day my sibs and I love storms.

I have a thunder and rain CD I play as white noise while I am writing. I've played it so often over the years that it's become something of a Pavlov's bell for me. The minute the CD starts playing, I am in writer mode.

Sherrie

[Keziah Hill]

Saw the pictures in the paper today down here in Oz. Keep safe.