Storms - In Nature and Among People

It's 5:20 am, it's thundering and raining outside, and I'm running a time deadline today with a 7:30 am dermatologist appointment, so today's blog might be short and sweet. That's OK, though. I can manage a quick post despite the rain and thunder booming overhead. 

Hurricane Laura landed hard and moved inland with
torrential rain and high winds causing wide swaths
of destruction. 

Of course, the past 24 hours haven't seen a lot of relaxed times. In the south, Hurricane Laura smashed into Louisiana causing swaths of property damage and at least one death. Closer to home, the riots in Wisconsin and supplementary riots elsewhere are still going on - Portland, Kenosha, and other cities expressing their frustration at racism expressed by so many others.  

The riots in Kenosha, Wisconsin continued, and sympathy riots in other places
also seem to be continuing. My own city was placed under curfew again
last night, for the first time since the George Floyd protests earlier in
the summer. The world is on fire. 

I recall reading a book many years ago that postulated the extinction of the "white" race as it subsumed into the various shades of brown shared by most of the world. It's one more step towards homogenization of race, and probably will happen - but not overnight. It's one of those things that anthropologists postulate will happen within a few hundred, maybe even a few thousand years. 

Of course this is world population percentages, but
Caucasian isn't a majority. and probably never was. 

Right now, though, I'm just trying to nail my schedule and hope that I can get in and out of places without getting drenched. It's raining with more thunderstorms on their way, and even though they aren't long storms, while they're moving over, they are producing drenching, pounding rain. I'd rather not see my doctor totally dripping on the floor, but at least it's really easy to dry off with a bald head - LOL. Have a wonderful Friday, enjoy your day and I'll be back tomorrow. Be safe, stay well, and please Wear A Mask. 

A Sunday of Cleanup and Buildup

Sunday was a busy day, although not horribly so. The temperature wasn't too hot and there was a gentle breeze, a nice change from the storms of earlier in the week. The first thing we did was pull the pickup out of the garage and start filling the back with branches that the wind had knocked off our trees. We joined a line at the compost area, but were one of the first eight trucks allowed in and our load wasn't nearly as bad as the truck ahead of us which appeared to be holding the remains of at least one tree. 

The truck ahead of us at the compost looked like it was holding
the remains of a good sized tree. Our load wasn't nearly as large,
heavy and bulky. Almost everyone was depositing branches and
storm damaged brush and I'm quite sure the compost was a very
busy place on Sunday. 

After depositing our branches, we headed back and DH started working on the flooring for Woodshed #1 while I investigated his progress on the eastern drainage. We discovered, during the STORM, that we got backup and problems with the drainage catchment because of leaves and other detritus being carried down from the roof. Although we discussed putting river rock levees in the ditch, we decided to try screening first, so DH laid several pieces of screen down the ditch. 

I don't know how well you can see it, but there's a section of heavy-duty
screen across the river rocks in the middle of the photo. 

He also broadened the catchment basin itself and raised it several more inches in height. I think it will work well, but he wants to see if he can lower it back another 1-2 inches since he'll need to grade the side yard to be level. Every inch of height requires a lot more compacted dirt before we can add sod and grass seed. 

He widened out the catch basin to hold more water before
overflowing. 

He also raised the walls of the catch basin. It's now probably around four
inches or so high. It's actually a bit too high, so we'll probably pull it
down an inch or two, but this should help the flow of water quite a lot. 

After he got the cross-hatched flooring attached and screwed in, we worked together to get the two angled side pieces of the roof framework on shed #2 clamped into position. He'll work on that today, but his major job today is getting sod for the base of the shed structures. He seeded it, and the compacted dirt held up very well in the storms of last week, but we need to anchor the soil into place as quickly as possible. 

The first thing he did was cut the flooring to size and
attach both layers. screwing every board into the
framework or the board below it. It needs to be very
sturdy, it's going to be holding a lot of weight. 

After he was finished with the flooring, we started working
on the roof for the second unit. It's only held in place
by clamps right now, but the angles and the inclination
are almost identical to the first unit. It's a bit harder to
work on Unit #2 because it's up to high on the dirt berm. 

So a trip to Home Depot is on DH's agenda today - a very dangerous place to go - LOL. Then again, the Home Depot credit card is totally his own card, and he pays it, so I don't have issues. Have a wonderful and fabulous Friday and please, stay safe, be well, and wear your mask. I'll be back tomorrow. 

Wrapping Up Stage 10 and STORMS!

It's a rest day for Le Tour de France today, but I hope some of you caught the amazing ending of yesterday's end in Albi. What a surprise. I can't believe Michael Matthews (Sunweb) whose team led him out for the finish in beautiful style, and he just sat back and watched. It's a sprint, for goodness sake! I don't know what he was thinking, but he ended up in 4th, when he could have been the winner. Instead, Wout Van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) won the stage. As we go into the rest day, we've had ten days of racing and ten different stage winners. It's an exciting Tour. 

Congratulations to Wout Van Aert, winner of Stage 10 of this year's
Tour de France. I'm very impressed by this Belgian rider, he's been
right in the thick of things from Day 1. I look forward to seeing
what he can do in the mountains to come. The Pyrenees start on
Thursday! 

Last night, ten minutes before closing, the skies opened up, the thunder boomed, and I lost all power at the shop. I had just kicked my associate out of the store less than three minutes before because the wind and rain had gotten so bad. Now I was scurrying around by the light of my phone's flashlight, locking my doors, turning off lights that weren't on, and doing whatever I could with the powerblocks on my electronics before I had to shut everything down for safety. Then, I no sooner was ready to leave when DH texted me that we were out of power at home, too. As it turned out, my store and a few surrounding blocks, and my home and a few surrounding blocks, were all that was out in my area. Everything between was business as usual - lights, camera, action. *sigh*

Home was out of power until almost 10:00 pm, and I have to assume I have now have power at the shop once again, although I won't know how long it was out until I check the clocks in a few hours. I took some amazing photos to share, though. After the storm passed we got some incredible lighting outside, and even a rainbow as we were walking into McDonald's for a late dinner. I might push through a photo blog tomorrow (since today is a rest day on Le Tour), just to share some of the lighting with all of you. It was so beautiful! 

Here's that meme that's been going around, since today is a Rest Day for Le Tour. No Stage maps for today. I'll be back tomorrow for Stage 11, a flat sprinter's stage just before we finally hit the mountains in the Pyrenees. 

 Marriages: 17
 Engagements: 1
 Divorces: 0
 Kids: 0
 Brothers: 0
 Sisters: 0
 Current pets: 0 
 Surgeries: 4
 Tattoos: 2
 Been to an Island: No
 Flown on a Plane: Yes
 Rode in an Ambulance: Yes
 Sang Karaoke: No
 Ice Skating: Yes
 Been on a Cruise: No
 Rode on a Motorcycle: Yes
 Owned a Motorcycle: No
 Rode on a Horse: Yes
 Stayed in a Hospital: Yes
 Favorite Fruit: Strawberries
 Favorite Day: Sunday is my Day Off
 Favorite Color: Green, or Blue, or Red, or ... oh hell - I love all of them
 Last phone call: A call to my credit card carrier about a charge
 Coffee or Tea: Workweek - coffee. Day off - tea. Love them both. 
 Favorite Pie: Lemon meringue or cherry
 Favorite pizza : Lots of different meats with hot peppers
 Cat or Dog: Allergic, but both have their charms
 Favorite season: Spring followed closely by Autumn
 Met a star: No
 Rode in a helicopter:  Yes
 Been on tv: Yes
 Broken a bone: Yes
 Seen a ghost: No
 Been sick in a taxi: No
 Seen someone die: Yes

So there you go, meme accomplished, even with the little emojis. I hope all of you have a wonderful Tuesday and I'll return tomorrow. 

Storms, Sun, and Tomatoes - Fall Is Coming Closer

The sun, or lack of sunshine, is becoming a problem on work days. I realize it's autumn - or close enough. The seasonal change is only a single day away. The sun is rising later and setting sooner and autumn is one of my favorite seasons, so usually I don't have a problem with the change of the seasons. But this year I have tomatoes - cherry tomatoes - on very full bushes, at varying stages of ripeness. This year I want to harvest and enjoy eating as many of these little red fruits of goodness as I can, but now it's getting too dark by the time I get home, to see them properly for harvest. It's a problem! 

I've really been enjoying my cherry tomatoes. DH planted two plants
for me and I've harvested hundreds of the globes of goodness over the
past month or so. SO good! 

Of course last night really wasn't the easiest harvest in any case. We had line after line of severe thunderstorms pass through our area, pounding us with rain and high winds all afternoon and into the evening. We didn't get tornadoes here in the Cities, but just south of us did get some tornadic activity and the winds were high throughout the area. It was the proverbial hot meets cold issue that we can get sometimes, and it was quite the show. 

This lovely band of red, orange and yellow was what was over
us late yesterday afternoon. There were tornadoes to the
south and east of us, but at least we escaped that. There were
torrential rains and localized flooding, though, from the storm. 

DH will be out cleaning the rain gutters today. We survived the third round of storms, but it was a close thing in a couple of places. The new drainage he dug for the front earlier this year really helped a lot. And ... amazingly enough, the sod-covered bank that we had so much trouble with in late July/early August held up. Thank goodness! We might still terrace that bank out in the next year or two, but if the sod holds up now, it won't be as urgent on our to-do list. 

As a reminder, we laid sod along the back yard bank - a steep
slops leading down to our creek. The sod already fell once in
a strong thunderstorm, but it seems to have finally taken
hold enough to handle a tough rain like yesterday's. We're
seriously thinking about terracing here instead of using
grass. That's a year or two out, though. 

So, to return to light and lack thereof, I guess I'll be harvesting my little tomatoes with a flashlight until we get our first deep frost. I'll have a BUNCH of green cherry tomatoes at that time. Anyone have any suggestions for green cherry tomatoes? 

I'm going to have a LOT of green cherry tomatoes when the
growing season ends. Anyone have recipies or suggestions
on what to do with a bucket or two of green cherry
tomatoes? 

Have an excellent Friday. I'm happy that another week is finally reaching its end. It's been quite an eventful week and it's not quite over yet. Of course, the plan is to be back tomorrow, so ... see you then!