I have water in my Outhouse Basement!

Well...
I do.

July 19th started out innocent enough with a beautiful incredible sunrise. I went to the ridge and enjoyed a brief flash of colors.

I drove to Black Bottom Creek and the clouds rolled in darkening the morning light.
So I should have heeded the old saying.
Red sky at Dawn
Sailors take Warning...

The sky had turned an incredible red before I got to the ridge.

And the saying proved very true.

This was after the hard winds of perhaps 70 miles an hour raged through with 1.5" of rain in less than an hour.
However the sunset was stunning.

I received a warning on the Smarty Phone saying that more severe storms were on their way.

So I made a quick check of the fences and animals. The mules had gone down into the hollow and were fine. No trees were across the fences and the animals were quiet.

Then the next round came. And the NOAA noted that it would be a long night of heavy storms with heavy rain and lots of lightening.
They were not kidding.

The hail hit at about 3:30 in the morning. I'd given up sleep by then. I worried about the animals and wondered if the heavy rains would wash out the creek again.

I started to chore and noticed there were some limbs down and it appeared that a tree was over on the fence.
We had sort of expected something like that.
So I went to the outhouse which also serves as my storage for my nippers and machete.
I grabbed the nippers then glanced down into the hole.
It was filled with water.
The rain had come so hard and so fast that it ran down the hill from above and had come into the outhouse hole.
I shrugged.

This looked like a job for a chainsaw.

I did chores and checked quickly on the rest of the animals. They were all just fine.

The garden looked like a mess but as of this morning the corn seems to be recovering and didn't suffer too much damage from the hail.

We were lucky. In McGregor Iowa a tornado had come through with the first storm and tore up that little historic town. The storm raged across the river and winds tore up Prairie Du Chein. So we were lucky.

The total rain fall for our place in 24 hours was 6.10 inches.

We finished up the day and have started to make preparations for the next round of storms.
Heavy rains, flash flooding, hail, and high winds.

Yeah. And there is still water in my outhouse 'basement'.

One day at a Time

We'd met with the Speech Therapist at the VA. The young lady was fresh faced and new, doing her internship with Veterans. I sat quietly while she did an assessment. I think that was the hardest part for me, watching my husband struggle with certain things.

However, the ST said he was doing quite well and normally they weren't able to see 'stroke patients' this soon after a stroke. She felt that he would make great strides.

Rich isn't sure about the great strides. But the therapist kept encouraging Rich to challenge himself with tasks, but to remember that when he got tired it would not go as well.

She looked forward to meeting with us next week.

We got home just as the first thunderstorm hit. The animals were eating hay quietly and the grand kids were sitting on the couch watching a DVD on a small portable player.

After the second round of storms blew through [we made a quick trip to the basement when that storm came through], the kids broke out a new deck of cards and asked their Grandpa to teach them some card games.

Without really knowing it, the kids were helping with Speech Therapy and Cognitive Thinking skill therapy.

Yesterday was a busy one even though Rich didn't think it was. We put round bales in with the gelding lot, the calf lot, and the cow lot.
For lunch we went to the local restaurant and had a really great meal with the kids.
We stopped afterwards to see Rich's mom.

For a person who has had a stroke just 12 days ago, that is a lot of activity.
I could tell that he was getting rather tired.

Our week has been busy with visiting helpers and drives to the Madison VA for appointments. Not to mention the phone calls I have had to make or receive for more appointments and follow ups.

After the kids left, Rich proclaimed that he needed to rest. Indeed he did.

I thought I'd run down to the "Morel Area" and see if I could find us a handful to cook up as a tasty treat.

I found some rather large ones on the upper north side of the creek bed.

Morris and I gathered up a small bunch and headed back home. I walked fast, but still managed to stop and photograph some wild Columbine, wild Geranium, Jacob's Ladder, and wild Strawberry flowers. The Mayflowers are blossoming now.
I wanted to head to the back valley to photograph the Trillium that litter the north hillside.
And I thought to myself.
Perhaps next year.

This spring was going to be too busy for long wanderings.

I took a slightly different path than normal home. The storms that blew through the night before had uprooted an old oak tree which fell onto a box elder, which fell onto another box elder and basically made a huge mess.

Unfortunately, it laid across our hot-wire fence. I do have to say that the fencing we use is amazing. it is 1/4" soft braided rope fence. After Rich cut a chunk out of the log we were able to replace the broken insulators and the fence was back on and hot.

And no. He probably shouldn't have been running a chain saw. However, it needed to be taken care of.

It basically wore him out physically. And I told him that the rest of the work would just have to wait until we had a chainsaw party.

“Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.” James Baldwin