Thursday, June 5, 2008

When It Rains, It Pours...

Just call me Oscar the Grouch. After two days of being busy with family obligations, I was looking forward to some "me" time yesterday, catching up on reading blogs and finally planting the rest of my plant purchases. Instead, I spent the day with the shop vac and mounds of towels mopping up water from my carpeting in the basement. Perhaps you'll understand why I'm just a little bit grumpy and really, really tired of rain.

In my last post I talked about the delayed planting of crops due to the rain, but none of that rain compared to Tuesday's storms. They began in the wee hours Tuesday morning; as I drove my daughter to an appointment, the sheets of water blew across the highway so hard that I had to pull off for awhile until I could see the road once again. By Tuesday evening they reached full force, with warnings of tornados that kept us in the basement most of the evening (minus the water at that point). We didn't have a tornado, thank goodness, but I awoke Wednesday morning to two inches of water in our finished basement. The sump pump was working, but the rain came down so hard--six inches according to the Weather Service--and there was nowhere for it to go in the saturated ground that the sump pump just couldn't keep up.

After a few hours of being on my knees on saturated carpet, I had to take a break and took some time to look past our yard. Our neighbors now have their own private lake--in their cornfield. Granted, this is in a low-lying area, but similar conditions exist throughout farms in the area. I don't think farmers will be planting soybeans any time soon.

Looking in the opposite direction, you'll see what appears to be a peaceful stream meandering through the woods behind another neighbor's house. Unfortunately, though, this is normally a grassy area with a small drainage ditch. On a typical day, there might be a foot of water in this ditch.
Driving into town to run a few errands became quite an adventure, as one street after another was closed due to standing water. I don't think these people went very far yesterday, unless they had a boat.

Of course, on a hot, muggy day, what could be more fun than riding your bike through a "puddle" of water, seeing who can create the biggest splash?

And just in case you weren't paying close attention, the ever-vigilant town maintenance department made sure you were aware of the situation.

By late morning the sun came out, but there were gray clouds in the evening with rumbles of thunder in the distance. The 10-day forecast has a few more storms predicted. Sigh...

On the bright side, my flowers (and weeds) are loving all this rain, except for the zinnias I sowed in one flowerbed--they may have been victims of drowning. And I saw my first hummingbird today! It apparently liked the new feeder I put on my porch, which is within a few feet of the swing so that I can get some good pictures of them. Of course, I neglected to bring my camera out this morning.

For those of you spending your days watering your garden, I will gladly send some of this rain your way. In the meantime, I'll try to get over these rainy day blues as soon as my basement floor dries out. And I promise my next post will be more upbeat with photos of flowers in bloom, even if I have to wade through water to take them!

23 comments:

  1. Rose,

    It is heartbreaking for the farmers and flooded homeowners...Hoping you have some very sunny days to dry out the fields and yards.

    Please send the rain to the Southeast...Georgia and Alabama need the rain and so does TX!

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  2. Wow! What a lot of water! Poor you. That must have been horrid. And poor farmers too by what you say.

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  3. Rose- Sorry to hear about your basement. My basement flooded a few years ago; luckily it wasn't finished and it was a good excuse to clean the junk out of it. (My neighbor laughed at the HUGE smile on my face when the dumpster was dropped off; Walt is somewhat of a packrat)

    My boss Ken is almost done planting his soybeans. We only got about 1/2" last night.

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  4. We had these very conditions early in spring Rose so I know how you feel. UGH... Our area was on the southern tip of that big storm. We got only the warnings and less than an inch of rain which was not too bad. I hope all dries out soon and you can get on with your gardeneing.

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  5. Gail, Thanks. I think we were reading each other's blog at the same time, LOL. I know that others are suffering a drought; wish we could even out the rainfall!

    Liz, Thanks. Other areas of the state have actually had worse flooding, and of course there are the states that have had destructive tornados. I shouldn't complain so much.

    Laura, My husband is a packrat, too. Half the basement is a storage area, and I'm not too worried about that. Some boxes did get wet, but they're filled with HIS junk I've been telling him to sort out for ages. Guess where they're going? :)

    Lisa, I remember your posts earlier this spring showing all the flooding in your area. Really, we could have had it much worse, and I am glad it wasn't. It's just my back and knees aren't used to all this hard work, although I think gardening has helped me be in a little better shape :)

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  6. Poor Rose.....That is some serious rain....hope you are now getting back to some sort of normality.

    Poor farmers...it must be devastating for them. We have no control over the weather, we have to just sit and wait.

    I do hope the sun comes out for you all soon.

    Bit scared to say but its sunny here!!

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  7. Hi Rose, the rains have made a mess of things for now, but hopefully the crops can still be planted in time for a good harvest. We are having drought conditions here in TN now, high temps and no rain. Hard to find the happy middle.

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  8. Hi Rose.
    So sorry to hear of your flood and terrible storms. I can't imagine what it must be like to have to take to the basement because of a threatening tornado.It must be scary (or do you get used to it?)

    I have just visited Dori and she is also blogging about extreeme weather in the USA. I can't remember which state now but apparently it is unseasonally hot.

    We were in Spain (Mallorca) and they have had the worst May, weatherwise since 1940. In fact most of western Europe has not had good weather this spring. It worries me sometimes that everything is not quite right!

    Anyway this is turning into a post not a comment!!

    Hope you don't have too much more mopping up to do especially as tomorrow is your birthday. So HAPPY BIRTHDAY for tomorrow (6th) I hope you will spend it pleasantly.

    Suburbia x

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  9. Rose, no I didn't leave on a vacation or anything like that- our Internet got zapped by lightning Tues. eve.(I'll bet that doesn't surprise you!)We finally got it back early this AM, but have been gone all day with Dad. Any way, way didn't you call? I would have come and helped with the basement! our rose picture came through and I like it.

    I wanted to HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

    Hope the basement it drying out. My roof's still leaking. :(

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  10. Oh Rose .. You are SO ALLOWED to be grumpy girl !! .. I really feel badly for you with the flooding .. we have our family room in our finished basement too .. facing a flood would really make me crazy .. not that I am not there already ? LOL
    You captured some great pictures of the flooding .. if you can say great (sorry) but it really hits home when you see what unrelenting rain can do.
    I'm so glad you didn't get the tornadoes .. the weather is incredibly unpredictable at times.
    I'm not going to complain about ours at all .. not after reading and seeing your story.
    Hope you get some nice DRY days soon !
    Joy
    PS .. your new picture is beautiful ! : )

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  11. Cheryl, You're right we have no control over the weather. Don't feel bad about your sunshine--you're entitled to it after the gloomy days you've had there, too.
    Granddaughter came over today, and now it's up to fans and dehumidifier to finish up the basement.

    Frances, It would be nice if there was a middle ground, wouldn't it? I remember the year we had a drought all summer; I've never seen my dad (a farmer now retired) as down in the dumps as he was that year. Hope some of our rain goes your way. Wait a minute, aren't you supposed to be on vacation? Enjoy your trip!

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  12. Suburbia, Glad you're back! Missed all your funny posts. Yes, you do get used to tornado warnings, only because I've never actually experienced one. There was a bad one 5 miles east of us, though, 10 years ago. People in that town are understandably paranoid about bad weather.
    Thanks for remembering my birthday! I was so surprised; I thought you were psychic...then I remembered telling you :) Now I'm ashamed to admit I forgot which day yours is. I'll have to go back and look it up.

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  13. Beckie, I didn't think to call. You know me--I try to do everything myself. Granddaughter #1 came over today to help move things around and clean up; she's a great helper. Fans and dehumidfier running full blast now; let's hope the next storm doesn't hit us as hard. And I hope they get your roof fixed! Thanks for birthday wishes. (See below about the rose photo.)

    Joy, Thanks for understanding my grumpiness! I'm not good in stressful situations. And thanks for the compliment on my new picture--would you believe that's a photo of a rose from my garden?! It will be part of my next happy post:)

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  14. Oh, Rose! You have every right to be a grouch! I'm so sorry you have the water problem. In your finished basement!?!

    Please be careful. And I want you to know if I could, I'd move that rain to Charlotte. We're desperately dry again :o/

    Congratulations on your hummer. By the way, your Sony Cybershot does a great job (wink).

    Mary

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  15. Rose,

    I feel your pain we've had these storms too. I've had some flooding in my backyard and although most of my flower beds weren't affected my vegetable garden was. My corn was standing in water for a couple of days, I hope they make it. I hope we don't get any more rain this week but the forecast looks like we will.
    btw - the blue plant on my blog is mountain bluet (Centaurea Montana).

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  16. Mary, I'd gladly send some rain your way. Reading all the comments, it seems that either people have way too much rain or none at all.
    This morning I saw a damselfly, zoomed in with my Cybershot and found that if I stood 12 inches away from it I could get a decent picture! She was very patient with me:)

    Karen, I hope your corn pulls through. My vegetable garden seems to love the rain, but the weeds do, too, and they're getting away from me! Thanks for the i.d. on the blue flower; I thought it was so pretty.

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  17. My heart goes out to you because I once lived in an area that flooded and I remember coming home from work one day and seeing everything ((((FLOATING!!! )))) The basement was never the same after that..I always felt it smelled musty..hence we SOLD the house and moved away to an area that does not flood!! I hope all drys nicely and the rain stops.

    BTW: my pretty flower I posted..first time I planted these so we'll see.

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  18. Total bummer! I would never put carpet in a basement for that very reason. (Of course my house came with carpet in the basement.) When I see signs like the "Watch for Water" one, I always wonder what I'm supposed to be watching it for. Will it leap up into magic fountains? I hope your weather gets better. We've got rain in the forecast every day, but it always seems to skirt around my area.

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  19. Oh my, Rose - too bad we in Austin couldn't take some of that rain off your hands! But please send just enough to keep your basement dry - we can still remember last June's fatal floods here in Central Texas, when the drought was in the north and Southeast.
    So this year you're flooding and I'm complaining about dragging the hose around.

    The hummingbird is a good sign!

    Annie at the Transplantable Rose

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  20. Hi, Just found your blog through Lisa at Greenbow. We must live near each other-I'm in east-central Illinois. It's raining again as I sit here, and I think it would be fine to be done with it for a few days!

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  21. Oh no! I'm so sorry to hear about your flooded basement, and all the trouble the rain is causing over there.

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  22. Rose, so sorry about all the rain and flooding problems. We've had some heavy weather here the last couple of days too. We really don't need any more rain for a little while, but there's still more in the forecast.

    I can't complain though, so far we've avoided any damage. We had a little water in the basement yesterday, but it's unfinished and it's dry today, or at least it was before the rain started again. I'm not going down there yet. I don't want to know. . .

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  23. So sorry, Rose ... mounds of towel mopping is NOT fun. I'm up north at the cottage and survived heavy rain and tornado warnings today but back home my family was not as lucky. Although all are safe, a tornado or huge wind surge damaged my son's property thankfully missing his house and nearly whisked my other son away on the golf course. My 'safe' daughter reported many in the metro area out of electricity. Huge trees were uprooted in my neighborhood. I'm sure I'll be doing plenty of cleaning up when we return tomorrow. Blessings for those not as lucky.

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