Little Guy

Amanda acquired a new "pet" at the beach this summer...a shell that she named "Little Guy."  The only problem is that while she was giving me the full story of Little Guy's life, she kept referring to him as a "her."  I asked if Little Guy should actually be Little Gal, but she was firm on the name.

We brought him home in his habitat that she created for him.  He lives in a cup with sand and water.  

Occasionally she moves him to dry ground, an area that she calls his "playground." 

Currently, Little Guy is living in a special place in our carport.  I suspect that he will move to the water table soon.  Then maybe we will "release" him from captivity and let him go back into the wild.  I'm sure he could find a nice home near the creek (or in the creek.)  The river rocks might make nice friends for him.

Back to School Shopping

This is what back to school shopping looks like at our house. 

After almost 20 years of teaching, Derrick has acquired more pens, pencils, erasers, scissors and other school supplies than most people get in a lifetime.  So, rather than buying new every year, we sort and regroup to see what we can send from home.

Derrick is in charge of this entire project.  Bless him.  He downloads the lists, checks them twice and fills the back to school bags.  When this stage is finished, he even fights the crowds at the stores to buy the new supplies that we need.  It is such a gift to me.  

Summer Traditions

We can't have "summer" without certain traditions...

*roasting marshmallows after a summer grilled supper

*picking buckets of blueberries at Lily's house (and admiring her horses)

*picking strawberries at Washington Farms

*Plenty of time for Lego creations

Flood!

It would be an understatement to say that we have had a wet summer.  Actually it has been a wet year.  We've had over 31 inches of rain through the end of June.  Normal rainfall for this time is closer to 23 inches.  

The ground is saturated.  Derrick hasn't been able to mow for a few weeks because his mower gets stuck in the muck of our backyard.  

When we went to bed last night, thunderstorms were rolling around us.  I laid awake for a long time watching the lightning show out of our window.  Around 2AM, I was awakened by more thunder and rain.  

But the real rain came just after sunrise this morning.  The radar showed just a small cell over our county, but buckets of rain fell.  It rained and rained and rained for over an hour.  

The result...a flash flood covering our backyard.  

Below you can see the water pouring off of the road into our yard.     

Here is a picture of the water coming over the bank from the creek.

An early picture of the flooding, taken from our bedroom window.

The water rushed out of the culvert.  It is an 8 foot pipe running under the road.  Water was pouring through it and the secondary pipe that they installed for times such as this.

The water continued to back up in our yard.  This is probably my favorite picture because it shows one good thing that came from the flooding.  You see, Derrick cut down a large tree in our backyard several months ago.  He cleared all of the branches but was waiting for the trunk to dry before cutting it.  In this picture, you can see the water carrying the trunk away.  It settled just on the back side of our creek...exactly the location where Derrick would have deposited the cut trunk.  The water made it look easy to move a tree 24 inches in diameter and 20 feet tall.

Amanda will use any excuse to wear a bathing suit.  Don't worry...we did not let her near the water, even though she thought it was great having a lake in the back yard.  On the contrary, we spent quite a bit of time pointing out the dangers of flood water...displaced animals (snakes), rapid currents, uncertain water levels.  The deck was a really safe place to be.

A view of our shed and compost bin.  Luckily, we saw this coming and were able to move the mower to higher ground before it flooded.

This was about as close as the water came to our house.

The water receded as quickly as it rose.  The rain ended around 9AM and the yard was clear by noon.  We have a bunch of silt coating the ground and I definitely don't think the mower will get through the muck any time soon, but there was no real damage.  For that, we were thankful.