Wild Weekend

It seemed to be an awesome weekend.   I started taking some photos of our critters.  Some were cute and some were funny.

Some were seriously sweet.

 But mostly taken of new dog of which the cats protested and wanted some claim to fame.

Nova cat claimed the dog house, while Boa claimed the cat nip!

 Ani claimed the back porch.

 And then there was the dog that claimed the cat did it!

It was an awesome day with things beginning to bloom, and I was even proud of how gorgeous my azalea bush was this year. My iris plants were going to be great and so was my hosta and rhubarb plants.

The Wild Turkey Festival was in full swing, so we decided to run to McArthur to walk around and grab something to eat.  It would get the dog use to getting out more in social situations.  I carried the little guy on the crowded streets all the while he sniffed all of the wonderful aroma from the food vendors.  Off the beaten path, he liked being center of attention, especially if there was a smoked turkey leg to eat!

 The clouds had begun to darken so we headed back to Logan and would stop for an ice cream before heading home.  By the time we got into town, it began to rain and it rained and rained.  Earlier, the weatherman hadn't predicted any until the next day.  We got into the house about 9 PM. and the cats were eager to come inside. Within the half hour it just rained all the harder.  It seemed not a good idea to turn on the computer or the quilting machine.  It became a torrential downpour and before we knew it, it was too late to move the cars out of the flooding waters.  I had never seen it so dangerous as this, as the water rose and brought along lots of debris crashing into the bottom of our house.  We live in a double wide and the skirting buckled in and broke away in several places.  The water was within a couple of inches of deciding if the inside of the mountaineer would get wet and the strong overwhelming smell of gas filled the air.  It was too dark to get photographs but you could see reflections of the rippling waters coming in from the back creek and when that seemed to stabilize, then the waters rose from the side creek engulfing the whole yard in a matter of min. Power went out from Nickle Plate Rd and didn't come back on until almost 10 A.M. today.  I began to worry as one of our cats had not shown up as well as worrying about the other outdoor cat.  As the waters began to recede, I heard a wail beyond the creek and knew it had to be Honey cat.  I walked through the muck in the yard with a flash light enticing him to walk just a bit further down so he could cross a fallen tree.  He was never so glad to see me as he jumped into my arms and we crossed the wading waters to the house.  We were both wet and muddy.  He kept rubbing my feet with his face in gratitude.

 I hadn't been in the house long when  In the near distance, I could hear another cat crying.  I knew that this had to be the semi feral cat, Tang.  Finally got her coaxed to the step and grabbed her to come inside for the night.  She cried briefly, but I think she was more relieved that she wasn't stressed out in trying to fight the elements.  By 2 A.M. I was exhausted and fell into bed. 

By morning, I began to walk around accessing the damage.  It was a real mucky mess as I sank into the well soaked yard.

The gravel in the driveway was covered in mud along with lots of missing red rock leaving a gorge where the car use to park. 

My beautiful azaleas had been quite battered and beaten by the fury and debri landing everywhere in the path.

The side yard no longer looked lovely.  The dog house was filled with water, the catnip and the pussy willow disappeared somewhere under the house or down the stream. 

So much for my lovely hosta plants!

 

 You can see where the waterline was on the skirting.  When we had the house put on the property, we purposely had it set up higher since we were in a flood way.  Other homes would have had water on the first floor.  This would have been over my knee here.  It's never been this high and is perhaps considered a 30 year flood according to my husband.  

At the end of the fence, you can see that all of my iris and rubarb plants were flattened and where the debri buckled the fence.

We have some standing water, but now the need to dry out and clean up after mother nature, trying to be beautiful once again.