Where Did I Put My Water Wings??..........

Well, as you may or may not know, we've been flooded.  Duluth made the news Wednesday.  It appears they got the worst of it.  Highways and secondary roads have disintegrated into horrible sinkholes; swallowing up cars.  A mudslide, knocking down trees on the way has occured; vehicles have been sunk under water and a building's foundation was washed away, leaving it teetering on a precipice.

We've had torrential rains for just about a week now.  In the 21 years we have lived here, we've never seen anything like it.  We have 2 feet of water in the basement of the old farm house.  Never had more than 6 inches ---- after a much heavily snowed winter, and then Spring thaw.

One side of our front yard is flooded half-way up.  The ditches along the road into town have water to the top;  you can see the water level in the fields.  One family up the road ---- their garage looks like it's sitting in the middle of a lake.

Our son emailed us pictures of a storm they got down in the suburbs of Mpls. on Monday.  100mph winds.  Tore trees up by the root ball; stripped houses of siding and shutters;  tore a double-wide mobile home in half!!  Ripped a 2 car garage door off it's tracks and bent it.   And one of the lakes went over it's shores.

You kind of get a feel for people who have been flooded with 10 - 12 - 14 feet of water in past years.  You can get the gist of it, but you can't fully imagine it.

There's a chance of rain every day now until Monday.  I feel especially sorry for BH.  He just got done putting all the chopped wood for next winter, in the basement.  Now it's soaked, some floating in the water.  He'll have to take it all out and stack it outside to dry.  We're talking over 3500 pieces of wood.  Approximately 18" long and  5" triangular.  (Yes.  He counts each piece as he stacks it in the basement.  I don't know.)

My flowers don't look the worse for weather.  But the marigolds planted from seeds ------ oh, they're lush, green and abundant ----- but no signs of buds!!!

We've been treated to a community of yellow finches!!  Everywhere!  They particularly love the shrub/tree down the driveway.  It has some red berries all over it.  It's funny to see about a dozen finches come in from every direction just before dusk, sit in the tree, and eat and sing!  What a beautiful sight.

And the bluebird and his mate that made a home in one of our bird houses about a month ago, they're still here!!!  Flitting and flying all over.  They are beautiful birds!!  Special to me because the first time we had them nest here was the year my dad died.  They showed up a couple of months before, and made their home in the bird house my dad made for us.  This house had been on the post for 2 years prior ..... never had any birds in it until that year.

So everytime I see the male......and he sees me.......I say a quiet "Hi Pop!"

Well, here's hopin' the rains are done and things begin to dry out.  Enough, already.

Sunday is our 23rd wedding anniversary.  We're going to the Casino and then dinner.   Hope we're as lucky as we were 23 years ago!!!