A stormy and soggy start to October

You ever have one of those days when you just shouldn't have gotten out of bed and gone to work? I'm sure the skidder driver from the picture above wishes he had just stayed home the day he buried his skidder in the mud. I took the picture above today while driving around town following our recent spate of wet, stormy weather. After a largely wet summer (with the noticeable exception of 7+ inches of rain in July), we looked to be in for a dry fall, with little rain in August or the first couple weeks of September. However, since September 12 we have gotten over 18 inches of rain, including 4.2 inches of rain yesterday!! It was raining so hard that many local roads were covered in water, and they let Kenny's school out early to make sure kids could get home safely (especially for the rural bus routes). In addition, yesterday's downpour hastened the demise of the old building pictured below:

This building (currently vacant) is on the downtown square, and I suspect the gentlemen standing around it are engineers trying to determine if the building can be repaired or must be torn down. We have also had some bouts with severe weather during this span, as you can see from the following wind damage pictures:



These trees were blown over in the nearby Rye community, about 15 miles from Monticello. They weren't calling this a tornado, but rather straight-line winds (the damage is just about as bad there, though). So, Lisa, I think we'd take your October snowfall to the stormy weather this time of year...
It hasn't been all gloomy, though. Last weekend we had a brief reprieve from the rain, and the kids and I were able to stroll Bathhouse Row in Hot Springs for a while:

The kids are playing in the steam coming off one of the hot springs. We were in Hot Springs without Hope because she was in Little Rock for two days of training with the diocese. I needed to check out a Hot Springs hotel for an archeology meeting being planned for fall of 2010, so we stayed at a hotel in Little Rock Friday night, and went our separate ways Saturday morning. Saturday afternoon, after returning to Monticello, the kids and I went to a birthday party for the cherub below:

The kids played with their friends and had cake, and then we returned home to wait for Hope. I had the day off on Monday (the Columbus Day federal holiday), but it rained hard again that day, so I didn't get to work on the house nearly as much as I wanted. There is a chance of rain tomorrow, but after that it is supposed to get sunny for a few days, so hopefully we can dry out a bit!

Comments

Lisa said…
Yeah, we had a few snowy cold days in a row last week, but this weekend felt like "Indian summer" and it truly was a pleasure to be outdoors. Warm, mild breeze, sunshine, beautiful fall color... nothing to complain about at all!
8:31 AM
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