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| Barley helps with the lake cleanup. |
It's quiet outside tonight; the sky is taking a respite after 6 days of rain. Our boots are parked at the front door; raincoats are draped over chairs in the dining room, and when we go to the grocery store in our olive green rubber Northerner boots, no one stares at us. The little red warning light on our weather radio has been on so much lately, I was beginning to think it was stuck, first warning for severe thunderstorms, then flooding, and today tornado. Fortunately, no tornados have developed, and though we won't be dealing with flooding at our house on the hill, plenty of people in this area will be.
Have I mentioned that Don likes to count things? He has 3 rain gauges, all within a mile of the Theodosia bridge, and every time it rains he takes the average of the 3 and posts it on his calendar, so at least in theory, he gets a pretty accurate reading of how much rain has fallen at the bridge. Since last Tuesday, we've had over 15" of rain. In the same time, Bull Shoals Lake has come up 15 1/2' and is still rising. Our average annual rainfall is 43", so in the last 6 days, we've received more than a third of what we usually get in a year.
The lake is muddy and runoff from the creeks has washed down dead limbs, which gather on the surface in large drifts. Waterfalls are everywhere. Frogs sing in the ponds, delighted with their good fortune. A pair of wood ducks dropped into our yard when all this was starting; we've seen them in a big hollow tree behind the house, and heard them talking to each other on the big pond. They must think they have found a paradise, where it rains every day, and the ponds are full. They needn't concern themselves with the lack of rain tonight. There's more on the way.
