Deluge

If you haven't heard, we've had a little rain. Saturday we went to a homeschool graduation around 3 in the afternoon. It had been raining off and on most of the morning and previous night. By the time we reached the graduation it had settled into a steady shower and the streets were beginning to collect some of the extra drain off.
The ceremony itself lasted a little over an hour. As a side note, i've been to plenty of graduations in my nearing 40 years of life. None, not even my own, have been near so encouraging and meaningful than the one's i've attended with the homeschooler's i have had the priviledge of watching grow up around here. When parents, who have poured their lives into their children for the past 16-18 years, present the certificate of achievement, its a little more inspiring than having your name called, walking across a stage, shaking a guys hand that you know by name only, flashing a smile to the camera and taking your seat. No, this has very personal purpose. We, as an audience, witness the culmination of years of the teamwork between a dad, mom, and children to bring the entire educational experience to fruition. To say it is emotive and poignant would graze the surface.
After the graduation, there was a reception. Of course, when our group gets together, be it birthdays, weddings, graduations, parties, any celebration, there is always food, and plenty of it. We usually don't even need an "occasion" just say something about getting together and out come the kitchen tools. So there we were with a room full of good people, good food, and alot of musical talent who just happened to have brought their instruments of choice. Needless to say, it was an experience in contentment. So by the time we left around 5:30 or so, and the rain had a chance to really get itself organized into a moderate monsoon, the roadways were beginning to look more like huge water troughs than streets. I was glad we left when we did, because right about the time we hit the driveway, it decided to rain. And when i say rain, i mean almost biblical windows of heaven opening up. It poured for a couple hours, with little relief. When the storm did sporadically let up, it was as if it was just taking a short breather from heavy labor and then it cranked it up again, usually with more intensity. Almost like a runner, seeing the distant finish line, and running more determinedly with every step, gaining momentum, gaining confidence, harder, harder, HARDER...
I went outside and stood under the porch just to watch it. It was impressive, just watching the torrential waves almost angrily pound the ground. I noticed that there were hundreds if not thousands of those little "water worms" as Princess #1 refers to them as, being mounded up in piles where the water was pushing them just on our sidewalk! The water in the street continued to rise on the curb eventually overflowing in areas and completely submerging the entire street even at the crown. I watched the dumpster i had left out for the garbage collectors begin to shift in its place. One of my neighbors had to break down his privacy fence due to the backup of water in his backyard, it was dangerously close to flooding his house. During one of the reprieves i decided to take a drive down the street. The river of water running down our street had turned into a powerful muddy surge at the end and cascaded into the bar ditches, rushing quickly to the creek bottom to the east. Had it been a few inches deeper i may have been in trouble with the low profile Honda i was driving. So i continued around the corner and up over the hill. It was bad everywhere, one neighborhood not far from us had a raging river flowing right through the middle of it. Cars were lined up waiting for it to subside just so they could get home, judging correctly that they would have been swept away by the powerful enraged rush. I was concerned that the current was so strong it might begin to chew away the road itself, but fortunately that didn't happen. I drove back to the house to find my dumpster gone, it had been pushed all the way to the end of our street, about 200 yards, and was lying on its side in the main road, i pushed it into the ditch and got quickly back in the car, because it had begun to pour again. It was one of those downpours where your wipers can barely keep up at the highest setting.
As do all such "cataclysms" this one finally exhausted itself and wandered away to drench the rest of the state and others. I can't imagine we're going to have too much to worry about with the lake, river, or pond levels for some time. I called a friend here in town and he said his rain guage went to 5" and was overflowing, and he had emptied it the previous day. I overheard a conversation on Sunday of a friend that lives east of us...they have big rain guage...they got over 10". I think that would be the best indicator of at least the amount. Hope the pictures do it some kind of justice. I heard and even saw the aftermath of large trees, refrigerators, and cars just floating down the streets. Fortunately, or at least i haven't heard of any fatalities or major injuries. So, the drought is DEFINITELY over now. My next step, gutter my house, so the rest of my garden won't be washed away and our foundation stays intact. I have a guy coming out today to give us an estimate.