What's Up Now

Well the rains finally stopped. Now we most likely won't see any until October. We got just shy of 12 inches in 9 days and we were the lucky ones; we were always outside of the brunt of the storms. Our usual August total is about 3 inches. The mosquitoes are loving it. The driveway looks horrible but it is drive-able with what we have and makes everyone else have to stop on the other side.

I can barely find my garden with all the weeds that have grown up. It would most likely be a complete loss if we didn't plant in the mineral tubs (about the size of a half a whiskey barrel). Ten or eleven of them actually had water flow in and over them, one of them had half the soil washed out. And we have had water flow into the fenced garden before but never like it did this time. My asparagus should recover but I have some debris to remove from the bed. We have a line of six or seven of the mineral tubs in the garden with an old fence stretched along them to let things grow up it, like last year we did melons in that spot, this year is tomatoes. One of the tubs in the line got hit head on with rushing water and the water pushed the tub a little over a foot, I think the tomato clinging to the fencing stopped it from going further, but it was far enough so that a lot of water washed around it. Any more and it would have just torn free. Those tubs are hard to move when full and more so if they have been in place for a while, and this one had been. Now it has so much sand and rocks and sticks and every other thing that flows in flood water that I am not sure about getting back in place. Unfortunately, the mower was sitting right next to that line of tubs and got buried in sand and other debris; we do not yet know if it is savable. There are flood marks on the garden fence, the driveway side where water would exit, that are 3 feet high. We are slowly getting it all cleaned up.

My silly soap, Days of Our Lives, is on and Ron has a doc appt. we need to leave for right after it is over so I need to get ready during the commercials and put the rest of this off until later.

I'm back.

The roads close by have had lots of damage. They dropped a bunch of boulders down in the spots where they got washed out; not for driving on but to keep folks from falling in the big hole. No telling when our roads will be tended to better as there is a lot of work on the paved roads and they get done first.

I noticed a couple days ago that some of my regular hummingbirds are not around but a couple of my "regular" transients have made an appearance accompanied by some I do not recognize at all. This means their migration has started. It seems early but I have never noted when it seems to start so maybe it is not early. Heck it took me a few years to really recognize most of the regulars so figuring when they are starting to leave isn't that easy. The very first that became recognized was because he had a shorter and stouter build than the others so was easy to spot. He had been coming here for seven years but I did not see him this year. I have seen his offspring, quite a few actually; one looks almost identical but is obviously a younger guy. And we had a female this year that had to be his--she is short and fat comparatively. I hope to see her again next year. I like being on the migratory route south and it is neat to see the ones that go further north stop back by here for a short fattening break before going on further south. The ones that have been here behave different than the ones that have not. It makes sense.