Category: Nature

So, do you want to know what the world looked like after a 3-hour torrential rain? Not, like, the whole world. Just the smaller area around our WV place.

They call storms like that “gully washers” for a reason. I’ve seen this phenomenon a couple of times, but it never ceases to intrigue me. “Amaze” is a bit strong for this situation, I think.

There were a lot of leaves in that gully on the left-hand side of the road. They’d collected there over a number of months. They were moldering and compacted. If I’d tried raking the leaves out of there, it would’ve taken some effort. Trust me, there’s a pretty long gully beside our driveway.

That was all done by rainwater.

The girls were not fazed at all by the storm’s aftermath. Actually, I think they kind of liked it. The younger two, anyway.

Belle loves running through wet grass. Actually, she loves running through grass, period. So wet grass is just a bonus. She loves it even more if there’s a bit of water laying around that she can splash through. I wasn’t able to capture any shots of her doing that, so you’ll just have to trust me.

K, on the other hand, isn’t crazy about getting wet. She’ll do it, mind you. She just doesn’t enjoy it like Belle does.

I honestly don’t think Meg cares one way or the other about being wet. For her, it’s just a state of being. Although several times during the storm she’d stick her head out of the doggie door, stop, and back-up into the house. It was raining HARD, though, so I don’t blame her a bit.

Meg didn’t walk to the end of the road with us on Sunday morning. Sometimes one or more of the dogs will veer off on a little side trip of their own. But she was waiting in the driveway when we got back.

So, other than lots of leaves being pushed out of the gully, the world just looked wet. It felt REALLY humid, too. In case you were wondering.

In my next post I’ll reveal something really weird that happened to me during my ride home.

Until then, have a look at this group of new dog pics I posted on Flickr last night.

This has definitely been the longest week EVER. Which is weird, because it was only a four-day work week. It was one of those weeks, though, where I had a pretty complicated work project due on Friday. On Tuesday morning, before I logged in and checked e-mail, I had a pretty good idea of what I’d do each day to get that project finished. Wrong. Something else crept up. Something else almost always creeps up. I should know better. Anyway…

There wasn’t a whole lot of spare time. And I couldn’t enjoy the spare time I did have because all week it was unGODly HOT. One of the reasons we decided to work remotely again this week was so we could get some motorcycle riding in. That and we just love working here. Even if we do have to share an office (GASP!). More on that later.

I decided to do something different this evening (I started this post last night). A blog post (this one) that’s more images than words. So I need to stop typing now and post some images.

Here goes…

Our house is in the woods. The woods are full of critters. Some smaller than others. Some more alive than others, too.

The girls are forever digging stuff up in the woods. They LOVE being able to run loose and explore. Thursday, while I was on the telephone, Belle and K came walking up out of the hollow. One was carrying a deer skull, the other a neck bone. Hubby was here so he retrieved the bones and disposed of them immediately. Unlike me. I like to leave stuff lay around for a while in high places and take lots of pictures…

With those bones in mind, perhaps you can imagine my horror when I saw Belle running around with THIS in her mouth. Maybe you can’t. I assure you, I was appalled. Because I knew I would have to be the one to get that thing, whatever gross, stinky, dead thing it was, away from her. This is what she usually carries…

Belle LOVES that raccoon. She carries it around often. I could plainly see the mystery critter was not the coon. The horror soon turned to relief, however, when I discovered the mystery critter to be an old dog toy (bunny) that someone had lost in the woods at some point. We haven’t seen that thing for ages. It’s ears were both missing, which I found sort of amusing.

This is one of the reasons we enjoy being here during the week. Our outside office. We have to share, but that’s okay.

If it weren’t so darn hot, it would have been perfect. Only the mornings were tolerable. Last week, I had to wear a jacket to work in this space in the morning!

We could never do this at the MD place. We live too close to the airport.

The dogs like the outdoor office, too. Until it gets really hot.

The hammock is a nice touch, don’t you think?

We did have a bit of drama yesterday. That project I’d been working on all week? The one that was due at the end of the day? At just before 5:00, I was getting REALLY close to being finished when it started storming. And the power started flickering on and off. My computer has a battery. But no power means no Internet. No Internet would have meant I was screwed. Big time. I’d have no way to deliver the completed files on time. My blood pressure was through the roof, let me tell you. I did manage to finish and get the files uploaded, thank goodness. And then I gulped a beer straight down to calm my nerves.

We needed the rain. But still. It rained liked this for a few hours. There was one quick gap in the storm (thank you, Weather Channel radar) so I was able to take the girls for a quick afternoon walk.

Finally, I decided my time would be better spent making dinner than trying to stay dry on the front porch and watch the rain.

Usually I’d shoo the dogs away, but by then it was thundering pretty loudly, so I let them hang out in the kitchen.

This tiny little kitchen isn’t big enough for me and three dogs. Luckily, everything I needed was at hand, so I didn’t need to move around much.

It stopped raining hard around 8:00 PM, I think. It didn’t stop completely until after we were in bed.

I think I’ll go see what the world looks like after three hours of crazy, hard rain.