Water. Roads Closed. And Stuff.

When I moved here in 1996, I realized that this was a place of steep hills and valleys and little streams that twisted through the landscape.

Our place is in somewhat of a 'hollow'. It isn't on the ridge, it is about 100 feet or so below the ridge. Travel another 250 feet down and you can be at our creek.

A lot of bad weather seems to like to stay on the ridge and the flooding occurs in the bottoms so we have hopefully achieved a happy medium. Well, we thought so in 2007 when we had historic rains and then heavy winds.

We had 19" of rain in three days and then the winds blew. We lost hundreds of trees. In this photo I counted 43 trees blown over or damaged.
Again. We were lucky and our animals were fine as well as our house.

The line attached to the tree is my clothesline on the same tree still.

Well that is neither here nor there.

Monday morning I awoke with a start as I hear a huge boom that shook the house. Well, that isn't even right, I awoke and then it ... the sound made me stand up right out of a deep sleep. Lightening was flashing. I figured there was a strike close by.
So I fumbled around and unplugged everything. Sort of like shutting the barn door after the horses have left. The storm raged on. I got up for a while and checked the radar and weather.

In the morning when I stepped out to let Charlie do his business, I felt something was amiss.
So I tossed my boots on and walked to the shed.

One of the old honey locust trees must have gotten struck by lightening.
A huge branch and come down and crushed two corral panels. I think I muttered a few cuss words quietly and reached down to pet Charlie.
Charlie looked up at me with that goofy face of his and I smiled.

Well.
My Electric braid fence was down in more than one spot. As miracles seem to happen all of the time on our farm, not one animal was injured or missing.

Splinters, shards, or perhaps even Tree Shrapnel was spread in a 360 degree area. Far and wide it was....

Tree shreds were stuck into the ground up to the depth of 6 inches. I even found a piece that had electric line embedded in it. The line was not damaged.

So after accounting for the animals, checking to make sure the fencers were not blown, and making sure that the power in the shed was still on, I started to gather tools and get to work.

I am not the master of electric fences, I will admit that. I will make mistakes and go back over things until I have it right. I felt it was a cruel joke on me that I'd finally gotten the fence to exactly where I wanted it, when this storm came.

Now I had a new challenge. Fix and restructure the fence. I took the opportunity to redo some fencing. The cattle wouldn't be on this section of land anymore so why not just do it?

I'm also somewhat of a believer in reusing what I can. So I made the fence 'hot' again to the rest of the farm after checking on the mules and Dexters. Next was the riddle of WHY would the fence not read 'hot' around the tree? It took me a long while and I probably even fixed things that did not need fixing.

Eventually it dawned on me. Lightening.
Strike.
Electricity.
Wires.
Lines.
Lightening...strike...electric...wires...wires...wires...power...wires.

I stopped and had a PB&J. My grandson Dennis came out to see what I was doing. I finally figured it out.

The electric braid rope wire had been attached to the tree by insulators. The lightening exited the tree in more than one place. I peered closely at the braid enduro soft braids. I felt them. All the internal wires had been 'blasted' outward. The electric braid rope fence felt like a porcupine.

Yep, I felt like Einstein for a moment. Then I realized how darned hot and humid it was and how much work I had to do yet. I showed Dennis the rope and let him feel it gently.

I took down some other fencing and used that to replace the ruined wire.

When all was done, I had mostly working fencing. So I let the mules back into the area to clean up the locust leaves.

The mules did the cleaning and I smiled. It had been hot and horrid.

The grand kids went home with their mom and I dropped into bed after doing some timed exposures of the night sky.
Another storm was brewing and it was supposed to go North of us.

Rains. Lightening, rain, thunder...I got up and checked on Charlie and the house. The rain was pounding, my cell phone blinked with a weather warning alert.
Flash flooding.

Oh here we go again, I thought. I stepped out onto the porch and decided it to try and go back to sleep.

I was startled awake.
I had no idea why.

I peered outside while warming up a cup of coffee.
The sky looked like it would produce an incredible sunrise.
So Charlie and I grabbed the camera bag an headed out.

I stopped.
There it was again.
The something IS wrong.

Ahhh.
The exploding tree had lost another section.
Oh.

And again. No animal had been harmed.
I tied Charlie up and went to check on my other creatures.

The sky was amazing.

And the mules were just fine.
I touched everyone and said good morning to them.

And then I set to work and it wasn't even 6:30 AM.

I got the fence re adjusted and back in service within 30 minutes.

I read the Sheriff's report and discovered that nearly 43 roads had been closed in our county due to mud slides or water over the road.

After running an errand to town [I stayed on the roads that keep to the ridges], I got home to watch another 4" come down in 3 hours.

I checked the animals and all were accounted for when the rains let up a bit. I walked to the creek and before I got around the last bend, I could hear it roaring.

The chairs I'd left down on the bottom were gone. Swept away by flood waters.
As I hiked back up the hill the rain came down in unbelievable amounts.
The pasture became a stream of its own.

And in the distance, you can see the mules coming to check on me.

I assured them I was just fine and they escorted me back home.

At 6pm we had 50 roads closed in our county.

Ever hear the saying?

You can't get there from here?

I think it applies tonight as another round of steady rain pours down.