When you live in the country, you have to take what comes and deal with it in the moment. Sundays. Holidays. Birthdays. When something needs your attention, you deal with it. I told you earlier in the week that we ran the snake down the back storm drain and got it running smoothly. Then, for some reason, it clogged back up on Saturday. We set up the sump pumps but…we couldn’t get any of the three pumps to work reliably and the hoses kept clogging. I know we need to do some major repair to that drain to make a more permanent fix, but until then, we jury-rig it to get along.
The weather prediction for yesterday was severe thunderstorms and heavy rain. It was also my birthday. And Mr. FixIt was trying to get the last of the lawn mowed with the push mower before it rained. Then, my bonus son called to say they were out at their daughter’s putting in hay and we should come out. We decided to take my chocolate cake out and share it with them, have a quick visit, and get back in plenty of time to snake the drain again.
Just as it happened last week, as soon as we hit the blockage, the water drained right down like a bathtub. The only thing we can figure is, with all this rain and hot weather, the forsythia and flowering quince growing over the drain pipe are sending roots in like crazy and clogging it up quickly. We’ve got it open again…and just in time. It rained very hard in the early evening. A grand thunderstorm with constant thunder and lightning all around us.
There’s not many things I like more than chocolate cake and thunderstorms! I’ll have to admit though…when I heard the storm coming, I came inside from the camper where I was set up to write this post. When they said “severe thunderstorm warning”…they weren’t messing around! I’m propped up in the guest room, the window open so I can see and hear and smell the storm, and I am impressed. This is the hardest rain we’ve had so far this year. I can’t wait to see how much is in the rain gauge. It’s a very slow moving storm and it is dumping rain like a waterfall. You can hardly see the trees on the hillside across the big creek. Mr. FixIt keeps going downstairs to check the drain. So far, so good.
Here we are…knee deep in June. We could be knee deep in water before it’s over with. There are flash flood warnings and Mr. FixIt says he has seen the water clear up in our field maybe five or six times in the 45 years he’s lived here.
Post storm note: Once the rain was over, we had just shy of 1.5” in less than 45 minutes! Everything was cooled down, clean and green afterwards. There is flash flooding all around the area. We went down to check the creeks and I noticed the water was flowing backwards up the ditch where our storm drain comes out. In less than a minute, the water raised at least a foot. We could hear the trees cracking on the other side of the creek, so we quickly backed away. It was really impressive, but…we’re still here!
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“May he be like rain that falls on the mown grass, like showers that water the earth!”
Psalm 72:6 ESV