the rain - rain - rain came down - down - down

What the hell just happened?

The rain rain rain came down down down
In rushing, rising riv'lets,
'Til the river crept out of it's bed
And crept right into Piglet's!
Poor Piglet, he was frightened,
With quite a rightful fright.
And so, in desperation
A message he did write.

When the girls, who are now in their 20s, were in elementary school, their favorite cartoon character was Winnie the Pooh. This song, first heard by the girls in the Disney movie "Winnie The Pooh and the Blustery Day," was an immediate hit. The youngest identified with Piglet, and so the song took on an even more special meaning for her. They loved the story in the song and the alliteration of the lyrics.

After all these years every time the rains come and the little creatures all come to camp around me until the weather passes, I still hear this snatch of song play in my inner ear.

Although no load thunder was heard this early in the season, the wind and rain kept banging tree branches around the house and blowing them onto the ground. And then, a bit after the the storm started came the wailing sound of sirens. Every time a loud bang or the sirens were heard Ruby would raise her head and give low, chuffing barks, just to let us know that something wasn't quite right. Never fear, Ruby was on duty.

Being a coward, I waited inside with the little animals until the worst of the squalls passed, then grabbed my E-M5 and grabbed a couple of shots. This one, out the garage towards the street, shows what I feared most: a lot of standing water and mud. Until the middle of last week we had a paved street until a crew came through and stripped the old asphalt off. They will eventually return and re-pave the road, but until then we've got this to deal with. To top it all off they've now got to came back through and re-sweep the roadbed before they repave it.

The winds blew down everything that wasn't tied down and littered the back with limbs from the maple at the corner of the house. I get the fun job of cleaning this all up once the rain has passed. Oh well, it could be a lot worse. We were under a tornado warning for several hours, and this could have been the very beginnings of a very long hurricane, like the hurricanes that lashed us severely in 2004 and 2005. Yes, it could certainly be a lot worse.

One oddity I've not noticed before. Before the rain hit the outside temperature was 82°F. After the squalls passed the outside temperature had dropped to 62°F.