Sept 25

The big news this week is the storm that came through Wednesday night through Thursday. A "100-year flood" they're calling it. (But, it's the SECOND one of the summer....How can that be?!?) Anyway, 9-1/2" of rain. Seriously. 9-1/2".

Once again, the gully through the pasture became a rapidly flowing river, moving the water through the property pretty efficiently. At the edge of the property there's a large metal pipe under the road (a drain pipe? I don't know the terminology) to carry the water from the gully to the creek on the other side of the road. Just like last time (Aug. 12-13) the pipe was overwhelmed and the water pooled up until it went over the road at the end of the driveway. As far as I know that area never became impassible (is that right? it went through the spell-checker), but there were many, many other roads in the area that did. The town of Arcadia (and others, probably) were evacuated. Again, we got a bit of a mess here, but no real damage.

Part of the fence did come down, though, and the curious cows found their way through a shallow section of the "river" (with their friends, the llamas, following along). Once again, I was here alone, with animals on the loose! And, in my attempts to "herd" them back to the pasture, I managed to get the golf cart (my trusty steed, remember?!) stuck in the mud. Things like that never happened to Drover, in the movie Australia!

I was forced to call in reinforcements this time. A neighbor and two passers-by came to my rescue, dragging the golf cart out of the mud (and rapidly rising river) and getting the animals back into the pasture.

All's well that ends well, I guess. It's almost funny now, when I think about it, but I had my moments of panic at the time!

A cool day is on tap for pizza today. Possibly rain this afternoon, too. Oh well. Such is the season, right?

Going home for the weekend again. H thinks things here will be wrapping up around the middle of October, so this may be my last "visit" home? We'll see.