Rain – and lots of it, flooding

The rains made it to the farm this morning about 3 a.m. I woke up to the lightning and thunder and prayed the Lord would hold everything together so the rain all stayed on the outside and promptly went back to sleep. When I did get up a couple hours later the storms had largely passed. There was still a lot of lightning across the entire sky but there was no rain falling.

The rain gauge showed only one inch had fallen but there was a lot of standing water on the ground. On the way into the office I heard reports of up to eight inches of rainfall to our north. In Valley View there had been reports of more than ten inches – I-35 was shut down in both directions in that area. That is going to cause some problems for travelers.

The roadway in front of the office often floods in even moderate rainfall. This morning was no exception. I am guessing the flooded portion to be more than eighteen inches deep. For me that is not a problem and it should not be for most of the employees who work out of this office, but there are a couple ladies that treat the water as thought they were crossing a swollen river. It is comical to hear them talk about traversing the obstacle.

Where Mama grew up in West Virginia the farmstead was across the creek from the hard road. You had to drive through the creek to get to the house. It was either that or park on the road and cross the footbridge – which was a telephone pole with planks of wood nailed to it. Grandpa had run a cable from one side to the other for a type of railing but it was more for show than for safety.

From the road to the creek bed was easily a twenty foot drop so in the winter it was always a challenge to get out because the water dragged up from the creek would freeze on the steep slope of the drive up to the hard road. More often than not we would leave the cars on the road and make the walk and in the summer, when rain swelled the creek, we would walk through the mud to the footbridge and cross to the mud on the other side of the bridge to access the house.

Mama did that all her growing up life – and loved it. Grandpa fixed up the old farmhouse they called home twice due to flooding. The house sat less than fifty feet from the creek and the water would often flood their yard. I never understood the original plan of the farmer who built the house. The house sat in the floodplain while the barn sat on the hill above the house – always high and dry. Sometimes I miss that old farmstead. I wonder if Mama does too.

There has been no new activity on the farm as far as the sale of the property goes. I am expecting to see prospective buyers come to look the farm over this weekend. Mama is actively looking online at houses. She will find something she likes and call me to look it up on Google Maps. More often than not, it will be too far away to be a serious contender for our new home; but she keeps combing through the listings.

When the Lord is ready we will find what we need.