So much rain

Mama called me yesterday morning to tell me we had gotten four inches of rain overnight Tuesday night. I thought it had been quite a bit. After I had been at work for a couple hours I found out that two of the ladies I work with had lost power in the height of the storm and one on them had been flooded out of her home. One of the two had some significant damage to buildings on her farm from a small tornado that touched down briefly during the height of the storm. Fortunately, her house was spared.

At church last night we learned that one of the ladies who does FBI with us and her husband had to take shelter in their cellar – ‘fraidy hole – Tuesday night because a tornado had formed right over their property. Fortunately, it dissipated and did not touch down. She still seemed to shudder as she recounted the event to us. That makes five people I know that have been affected by tornados in the recent bout of storms.

The Lord has been very gracious to me and Mama – Victoria as well. Her little house has not suffered any damage other than one shingle being blown off of the front porch roof. Every night this week I have gone to bed with the lightning flashes piercing through the closed blinds; counting the time until I hear the thunder, if I hear it at all. The house muffles the thunder to the point that Mama and I are not usually aware of it through the night.

The old timers used to say that it took a hurricane to break a drought. That has not been the case this year, nor would I wish it, but this is pretty close. The good part of what we are experiencing this year is that the drought is over, the lakes are full and the daily damage and heavy downpours have not been in the same area night after night.

Over the course of May the intensity of the recurring storms has shifted across north Texas allowing each successive damaged or flooded area to recover somewhat between storms. For example, friends of ours at church that suffered some severe hail damage from a storm last Thursday have gotten only one half inch of rain since then while Mama and I have gotten nearly seven inches.

Mama was talking last night as we drove away from the house about getting the tractor out and scooping up some of the gravel that has washed up onto our county road and putting it where we need it. I had to tell her that I did not think we would get the tractor out of the barn without causing a lot of damage to our own roadways on the property.

The tractor is quite heavy and will make very deep ruts as we cross the property. Those ruts then fill with water as it continues to rain, making the ground even softer and very soon we have another problem to deal with. So we will continue to drive over the misplaced gravel for a few more days. At least until we have a few days of either no rain or very light rain to allow the ground to dry out a bit.

I penciled that project in for mid-July.