I hate to listen to myself complaining, so I wont. I'll just tell you of the comical bordering on give me a break evening I had.
Yesterdays weather was beautiful, early bike ride, gardening, got some major sewing in, nice. My Sister had invited my kids to spend the eve at her house so around 3:00 I dropped them off. This is great, I don't have to fight the kids for the use of the computer. Came home started dinner, finished a bag, started tagging more bags and logging them on the computer so I know just what I'm taking to the show.
Hubby came home, we ate, sky's getting darker, he goes out to mow before the storm. I go and gather the grass clippings to give to the meat chickens because they are penned in a woodsy run.
"Thank you nice lady who is eventually going to eat us!"
Thunder is rolling in, we start getting a torrential downpour.
Quite a few chickens are on the porch. The dog who HATES thunder had just hopped into the pond a few minutes earlier and wants in, not just in sitting by the door to dry off, but in under my feet. Big annoying baby.
Well it was staying pretty dark, so in between downpours (is that a word?), I run out and have the girls on the porch follow me to the coop. The girls apparently don't know what to do other than stand by the door in the rain. So I'm grabbing them one by one, while I'm in my bathrobe, and put them on some roosts. Two decide they don't want to come in and I had left the big baby chicken herder dog in the house. I then see at least half of the meat chickens are out in the rain and thunder with no idea what to do.
Now as a side note, I had just seen the man who was struck by lightning on TV and the little metal doohickey on his baseball hat was where the lightning struck and i am standing there with one of those giant metal flashlights that the police carry in the middle of a storm.
So it is really booming and cracking all around me so I decide saving some chickens isn't worth dying over so I set down the flashlight and close the coop windows and hang with the ladies for awhile.
So when I deem it safe to make a break for the house, I run with a bathrobe pocket full of eggs because i am a multi tasker ya know.
My concerned for me Husband, NOT, hadn't even got out of his chair to see if my charred body was out in the yard.
So while inside looking for a smaller flashlight, I notice that the power isn't quite out but so low that the only thing working is a couple of dimmed lights and the TV. At least I could watch So You Think You Can Dance. Yea! Bad news is the computer went out and all the new items i listed for the show are gone! Now I can't even get the computer kid free time in that I was planning.
I shove the bread i was about to bake into the not working fridge to hopefully slow down the rising process.
So the thunder had eased a bit so I take a tiny but powerful flashlight and big baby dog out to track down the rest of the chickens. We get the 2 missing hens in, my big baby dog is scared but still is helpful bless his heart.
Those meat chickens just do not want to cooperate. I had to pin them into a corner and shove them in. It is pouring, my legs and shoes are muddy, but finally we get everyone in.
Whew!
I dry off a bit, watch my show, start getting ready for bed and the phone rings.
Apparently one of my nieces was having a meltdown, my girls feelings were hurt and begged me to come and get her between sobs. Still storming, I throw raincoat over pj's and hop in my "new" car. Luckily I had the little flashlight in hand because never having driven this car at night, I couldn't find where the light nob was. Finally find it and what is that strange sound? It sounds like rain coming in the car? What?
Well those handle type things are what make the windows go up and down and one of the backseat ones was left open for the 3 1/2 hours of torrential down pour. So nice.
I get the girl, she isn't ready to talk about what happened, I tuck her in and snuggle a bit.
In the morning before work, Hubby gets the generator going so we don't lose our 1/2 hog in the freezer.
I go on a walkabout to see if all is well.
There was about 5 inches of water in this tub that had no water yesterday.
Luckily the garden did well and we only had a leaning tower of peas aah.
We had a bass swimming between rocks we usually walk on.
All the meat chickens survived the trauma. I'm still mad at them though.
The power came back on around 10:00. I turned off the generator, flipped some switches and my deflated bread is about to go in the oven.
So other than some questionable bread, a very soaked robe and car, having to re-list some bags on the computer, all is well.
I hope you are all weathering your storms.
One evening of picking equaled 4 pints of Jam, one pie and a 2 cup portion for muffins in the freezer. I am hoping to get at least one more batch but my time is severely limited in the next week and a half.
We've been staying close to home,
