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.
The storm was a real gully-washer.
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.
The leaves that didn't get pushed out of the gully were transported to the end of the road.
That was all done by rainwater.
A closer look.
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
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
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.
Meg
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.
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…
One CRAZY Caterpillar
Our house is in the woods. The woods are full of critters. Some smaller than others. Some more alive than others, too.
Only two of the many trophies the girls discovered this week.
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…
Belle and her mystery critter.
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's favorite raccoon.
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.
The office hubby and I share.
This is one of the reasons we enjoy being here during the week. Our outside office. We have to share, but that’s okay.
I really enjoy our outdoor work space.
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!
The fans helped, but just a little bit.
We could never do this at the MD place. We live too close to the airport.
Hubby hard at work.
The dogs like the outdoor office, too. Until it gets really hot.
Break area.
The hammock is a nice touch, don’t you think?
Returning from one of our little strolls.
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.
It rained HARD and for a long time.
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.
The break didn't last long.Wet dogs."I don't like thunder, Mama."
Finally, I decided my time would be better spent making dinner than trying to stay dry on the front porch and watch the rain.
The girls waiting for their dinner. This was between storms.I had an audience.
Usually I’d shoo the dogs away, but by then it was thundering pretty loudly, so I let them hang out in the kitchen.
Hoping for droppage.
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.
When I visit my Flickr photo sharing space, the first image I see is always the last image I uploaded.
Sometimes, that’s good because it happens to be an image I really like.
If I visited my Flickr page at the time of this writing, this is the picture I’d see. NOTE: click on the image for a better view.
Toad!
That toad picture makes me smile. Not just because it’s a toad, silly. Because of the way the light is hitting the toad.
For several weeks, this is the picture that occupied that spot.
K and Her Stoic Expression
That’s cool, too. K is generally way happier than she ever looks. I like this picture because it just tickles me how K always wears this serious expression, but at heart is such a goof.
Before that, for a little over a month, this is the picture that sat in that top spot.
Joey Stuck in the Snow
See the distress on his face? This was taken on February 12 when we had 40+ inches of snow on the ground. He slid off a short wall into a snowbank and got stuck.
Daisy Mae (one of my friend Carol’s cats) happened to be the top image for a little while, too.
Daisy Mae
Then there was the time K and Belle were in that position…
K and Belle Playing
I’m sure there’s some setting, somewhere, that would let me change what picture appears there. But I sort of like the way it works now. Why spoil that perfectly happy coincidence?
Just two days after I captured this image of my super-cute grandson, Joey, he fell and hit his head while at daycare.
On the sidewalk.
Knowing Joey, he was probably moving at a pretty good clip at the time.
Joey Before the Fall
Check out this poor boy’s forehead…
One Bruise + Road Rash = One Humongous-looking Bruise
I am SOOOOOOO glad this didn’t happen when he was in my care. I would have freaked. Those daycare people are used to this sort of kid accident. Not me. I’m still a Rookie Grandma!
Amy says it looks far worse than it actually is because of the road rash. That is not only her opinion, that’s also what the ER folks said.
Speaking of Amy, she says she’s used to getting calls from daycare while she’s at work reporting that Joey has had one little accident or another. You know, just to give her the heads up (no pun intended). So when they called to report the fall and told her she needed to come, even she was a bit freaked.
Crazy stuff like this always seems to happen when her Army Husband is away. He’s been deployed for about 2 weeks now, so she was due…
Yesterday was one of those I-just-can’t-stay-in-this-house-today days for me. That’s okay in a way because it was my day off. I have plenty of stuff that needs to be done around here that I could have done instead. But the weather was supposed to be in the 80s and not very humid. I figured I could do my chores on Saturday and Sunday when it’s supposed to be rainy.
So, I threw my camera equipment into my backpack, grabbed the keys to Shannon’s car, and headed out for the day. Her car hasn’t seen much use, so I figured it could use some exercise.
I wanted to do something different. Something urban. Don’t ask me why I decided to be among people. I’m not usually a city girl. Maybe it’s because I was driving Shannon’s car. She is a city girl. Since we almost never go to Washington, DC, despite the fact that it’s only about 30 miles away, I decided to go there. The last two times I was there, I went to the National Mall / Capitol area. So this time I decided to head to Georgetown. I thought it might be cool to see this end of the C & O Canal (as opposed to this end).
Mid-afternoon temps hit 92 degrees (taken at just one of my MANY traffic stops).
Bad idea. Bad, bad idea.
I was totally not prepared. I mean, I pretty much knew how to get to Georgetown. But on the whole, I don’t know DC very well. I didn’t take a map. I also didn’t bother to check out what was going on in Georgetown yesterday. As I learned later, this is graduation weekend at Georgetown University which, of course, is in Georgetown. Traffic SUCKED. Traffic was heavy all of the way through the city, but it got really bad in and around Georgetown.
I made one wrong turn on M Street and ended up heading away from the main shopping area. No worries, though. I have a great sense of direction and knew I’d get back there eventually. I was almost back to that spot, though, when I made another wrong turn and ended up heading across the Potomac into Virginia. I could have just turned around and headed back at that point, but opposing traffic heading back into Georgetown was backed up all the way across the bridge. I’d already had my fill of the whole stop-and-go scene, so I hopped onto the George Washington Memorial Parkway, instead. It pretty much parallels the Potomac River from Great Falls, Virginia (northern end) to Mt. Vernon (southern end). Because one of my Flickr contacts (Nikographer [Jon]) has shot lots of great critter pics there, I made a spur-of-the-moment decision to head to Great Falls National Park. I’d never been to the Virginia side before.
Aside from the kamikaze commuters doing 80 mph on the GWMP, my drive to the Falls was without incident. NOTE: click on any of the images below for a larger view.
Great Falls of the Potomac
Great Falls National Park in Virginia has three “official” overlooks providing views of the river. You can see it from many more spots, too, where some of the gazillion visitors over the years have blazed their own paths to the river’s edge. An average of seven people die from drowning here each year. Not all, but most of them fall into the river after blazing or following one of these paths and climbing on the rocks. Idiots. I stuck to the overlooks (a sure sign of impending old age!).
Overhead shot of a Great Blue Heron
I didn’t realize until I was at the Falls that I’d left my zoom lens at home. I was so bummed. There were Great Blue Herons all over the place, fishing for lunch. Luckily, I had my doubler (doubles the power of a lens). That did allow some degree of closeness. But I would’ve ended up with much better bird shots if I’d had the zoom lens along. These are just snapshots to give you an idea of what I saw.
That Great Blue Heron was on the rocks right below the overlook. I got a couple of half-decent snapshots of him (or her).
My favorite GBH shot of the day.Same bird, different angle.
There were a lot of international visitors there, which surprised me. I never knew Great Falls drew tourists from afar.
Another thing that sort of surprised me were how many people would come to the overlook, “ooh” and “aah” about the water, but not even bother to notice the birds. These are BIG birds; they’re 3.2 to 4.5 feet tall with wingspans of 5.5 to 6.6 feet.
When I left the park, I was not at all happy to discover that traffic on 495 was stopped. I wouldn’t have needed to be on there for long, but I didn’t feel like sitting in traffic. So I just stayed on the Georgetown Pike. I’d never been on the road before, but I figured with a name like that, it HAD to lead back to Georgetown. I was right. But it was even more crowded and congested than it had been earlier in the day. So I just decided to get out of the city. Remember, I don’t know my way around DC. So I just drove. When I saw a road name I recognized as a route to the suburbs (New Hampshire Avenue), I followed it. Easier said than done. It’s not a straight road. And the traffic! Ugh.
I followed that route until I saw a sign for 193 heading east, which was the direction I was seeking. I recognized that road name, too, so I followed it for a while. Another mistake. More heavy traffic. When I got to US-1, a road I know runs north/south and passes relatively close to my house, I turned right. Yet another HUGE mistake. That right turn not only put me on US-1 south (the wrong direction), it put me into the heart of College Park.
The University of Maryland is based in College Park. And guess what yesterday was at UM? Graduation day. Crap. (That’s not the expletive I chose, I’m just keeping things clean here.)
I should have known it was graduation day there because a close friend of the family actually graduated from UM yesterday.
Jaime Gibbons (the graduate) and her sister, Nadya Spice.
Anyway… traffic CRAWLED through College Park. It was awful. I was so happy to see signs for the Capitol Beltway. But then, of course, the Capitol Beltway was stop and go, too. I got back onto 193, heading east again, to get to the BW Parkway. Traffic was stopped on that, too. So I just stayed on 193.
By that point, I’d spent most of my day in the car. I still wanted to get OUTSIDE. So I headed for the Patuxent National Wildlife Refuge. The last time I’d gone there was in January. I am still kicking myself for not having that zoom lens with me, but I got some neat shots anyway.
A toad! How appropriate.The first time I have EVER actually seen a duck coming out of one of these boxes here or at any of my other many visits to wildlife refuges all over the country.A Blue Grosbeak; first time sighting for me.Lily pads and other aquatic plants.
It was a LONG day. It wasn’t nearly as relaxing or refreshing as I’d hoped it would be, but you know what they say… even a bad day off is better than a great day at work.
When seeking an image for yesterday’s post, I went to the Library of Congress site at Flickr. I needed something old. Something from a past generation. It didn’t take me long to decide where to go. It’s a cool place to visit. There’re all kinds of old photos there. And there’s no restriction against sharing them.
This first image is from the Washington DC Marathon, taken sometime between 1910 and 1915. Before learning that fact, I imagined this caption… “Look! A numbered man running. He must be an escaped prisoner. After him!”
No odd captions for the next image popped to mind. I just like the picture. Apparently it was taken somewhere in Colorado along US 40. Yes, that’s the same US 40 that cuts through Baltimore. It is called the National Road / National Pike, you know.
The kids pictured below? It’s not Louis and Lola. It’s Michel and Edmond Navratil. The picture was taken after the Titanic disaster as they were trying to identify survivors. Their father was killed during the disaster. There was no mention of their mother.
The next one shows “women wipers at a roundhouse.” I know that “roundhouse” is associated with trains, so I guess that means these were ladies responsible for wiping off the trains. I wonder if they just had to do the windows? Or the entire trains? It’s part of a collection called Women Striving Forward, 1910-1940s.
When you have some free time, you should check out the Library of Congress Flickr site. Why does the Library of Congress have a Flickr site?
We serve as the national library for the United States, based in Washington, DC. With more than 142 million items preserved on some 650 miles of bookshelves, we’re also the world’s largest library.
In addition to books, we have photos, maps, databases, movies, sound recordings, sheet music, manuscripts, and information in many other formats. Millions of items are online, and the full array of collections is available in DC, right across from the U.S. Capitol building
What are photographs doing in a library?
We’ve been acquiring photos since the mid-1800s when photography was the hot new technology. Because images represent life and the world so vividly, people have long enjoyed exploring our visual collections. Looking at pictures opens new windows to understanding both the past and the present. Favorite photos are often incorporated in books, TV shows, homework assignments, scholarly articles, family histories, and much more.
The Prints & Photographs Division takes care of 14 million of the Library’s pictures and features more than 1 million through online catalogs. Offering historical photo collections through Flickr is a welcome opportunity to share some of our most popular images more widely.
If you do visit their site, let me know what you think.
