Serious rain

6/18/08 Wednesday
We had some serious rain last night, which is always welcome. So this morning I got the tiller out to work now that the ground is soft and pliable. There was some serious damage done over the last two days when the storms moved through. We lost another panel off the greenhouse and some of the plants were broken off at the ground, but that’s nothing compared to other areas. The tiller is working great now. It sputtered and backfired at first and was hard to start but cleared up. That is a big relief.

We usually keep a window open so the evaporative air unit can work better. That way there is a better flow of air through the house. When the storm came through Monday night it came with a wall of sand. As we watched it approach Cherie and I both wondered about the darkness that was apparent on the ground level even though the storm was twenty or so miles away. You couldn’t really tell a difference between it and the rain you could tell was coming down. When it rolled in there was no mystery anymore. It was sand kicked up by the powerful wind that arrived with the storm. But that was coming out of the northwest. Sometime in the night the wind changed direction and came from the east. That’s the side of the house we had the window open because it was opposite of the wind direction at the time. When we got up everything was covered in sand. I remember getting up at two in the morning because of the noise of the wind and closing the window. That didn’t matter, the sand came through every crack in the house it could find, and there are lots of cracks.

A neighbor of Cherie’s friend, Jeannie, had her Mulberry tree split by the micro burst that took out so much of the north side of Midland. These micro bursts are strong downdrafts from the thunderheads that can cause hundred mile per hour winds. It twisted some of the metal stop lights and snapped many telephone poles in half. Jeannie called to ask if we could use the wood and we said we could. So right now the truck is seriously overloaded with wood. Even with over forty pounds of pressure the tires still look low.

I told our story to the owner of the tree service that came to finish taking the tree down. He’s a strong Christian and said we had really uplifted his day with this testimony. I asked about getting firewood from him and he said that is fine and he would deliver it if we pay for the gas. He also has lots of mulch from all the branches he chips up.

There is lots more I want to write but I am exhausted from tilling this morning and cutting the wood. Cherie and Jeannie helped load it but there is more than a ton and the larger pieces I had to do. I’ll be sore in the morning. Here are some great pictures I’ve taken over the last few days.