Muddy boots

I grew up in New Jersey, and spent my college and veterinary school years in New England. I am used to the winter. Heck, I learned how to drive on the ice in NJ and spent over 30 days in a row where the temperature never got above 20 degrees in Massachusetts one winter. (Frozen pipes? Yep.)

I know that wouldn’t count as a harsh winter for my North Dakota friends, but it was touch much for us Mass folks.

In New England, once winter sets in, it gets cold and snows. It stays cold and that snow sticks around until the spring. Not so in Indiana. Indiana cycles through snow, rain, and mud. For months.
The week after Christmas, we got somewhere between 12-18 inches of snow, in two storms. On January 11, it rained somewhere around 2 inches. The snow melted and the ditches flooded.

And it made mud. Lots and lots of mud.

Auntie Em, where are you?

We had some rain here last week. Just a little. The official tally was 3.5 inches in 30 minutes. Our rain gauge only picked up 2.5 inches, but a lot of the rain was coming sideways. I was home by myself. I called Hubby Doc in the middle of the drama and said I might get blown to Kansas.

He calmly informed me that the wind was blowing the wrong way for me to end up in Kansas.

I not so calmly answered him: “Okay, FINE! I’ll end up in New Jersey,then!”

He assured me I would not be blown to New Jersey.

Though I thought I might float there…

The ditch filled to overflowing, and the lower hay field flooded. Somewhere there is a road in here… It looks like a river…

The cows even had a swimming pool for a day.

We lost power (just us, not our neighbors). Electricity is pretty essential for the sump pump in the basement. So we got water in the basement. About four inches worth in about three hours.

And after it stopped raining, the water level kept creeping up on the roads and fields. Turns out, when there are 3.5 inches of rain in 30 minutes, there is nowhere for it to go. It collects, and ends up across our driveway. The flooding was so bad near our house that Hubby Doc barely made it home later that evening.

Thankfully, he made it home safe, and with a generator, so we were able to dry out the basement.

The power company was out around 6:30 the next morning, once the flood waters had receded a bit, and we were back in business. Just in time to go to work.

And I was hoping to be able to call in flooded. Ah well.

Not all bad

This rain hasn’t been all that bad. But there was no pot of gold in our barn. (I checked.)

Wordless Wednesday

No woman is an island

But sometimes she lives on one.

This morning, I looked out of the bathroom window. The cows had a new swimming pool.
Ah, crap. We had gotten 3 inches of rain overnight. The ditch was full, and the road was flooded.

Some of this water is in the ditch. Some of this water is in our pasture and our hayfield. Some is in the neighbor’s wheat field. Some is completely covering the road.
Our driveway was flooded, too.

Our driveway is the curve coming on the right side of this picture. See the straight line of fence posts at the bottom of the hill?
Those line the edge of the driveway. At 7:00 this morning, the driveway was 1.5 feet underwater.
There was no getting down the driveway.
I have always wanted a lake house, but this is not what I had in mind!

I have never been more glad to live uphill!!
Normally, I would be just thrilled at being stuck home all day. Unfortunately, Farmer Doc had to do some surgeries at the vet clinic this morning, and I had to go check on a pregnant mare.

So we waited a bit. Luckily, it had stopped raining.

At 9:00am, the waters had come down. A little.
There was only 1 foot of water on the driveway. So we left. In pickup trucks. (It was a little dicey.)

When I got home at 2:00pm, we were in the clear.

The driveway was visible.
The road was dry. (Well, not dry. But it was no longer underwater.)
The cows had lost their lake front property.
But it has started raining again. And it’s not planning to stop.
We are expecting another 1-3 (and maybe up to 5!) inches today.

Wish me luck!!!

Rain, rain, go away

You may not have heard, but it’s been raining in the midwest for the last week. We have a little extra water.

This is the White River, about 20 minutes north of our house.Actually, this is supposed to be a cornfield, just north of the White River. Yep, not many telephone poles in the middle of rivers.This road goes past the cornfield/lake. Have you heard that you shouldn’t drive through high water?This guy did. But you still shouldn’t. My little car would not have made that.

This is from south of the river. The actual river is supposed to be between the two rows of trees towards the top of the photo. I would have taken a better photo from the bridge, but there’s a lot of traffic. And not much room to stand. I didn’t want to get squished by a semi!!This is supposed to be a soybean field, right next to our driveway. For now, our driveway is not underwater. But it won’t take much more water to get there!John says you can tell that it is going to rain when flies cluster on the sides of buildings.They were clustering on the side of our house tonight.And I checked the radar. The radar said it is going to rain, too. (I don’t trust bugs. Especially for weather prediction.)

This storm started around 10:00 tonight, and is supposed to keep going all night and into tomorrow!

Ready… set… rain!