Welcome to day 3 of the worst month of the year.

I am setting here listening to the fans running in the bathroom where the now defunct washer sets and in the bedroom downstairs where the water eventually stopped.  Last night the washer float stuck.  Since nobody was paying attention, it continued to over flow until Mike went down stairs and found water gushing from the ceiling into his tool box.  That got our attention.

I stood in ankle deep water to unplug the washer and turn off the cold water valve.  Yes, God is good or I would be a fried tomato today.  Now I face a day of dealing with the insurance company and hoping that this can be taken care of in a timely manner.  I want so bad to put the little Laugh Out Loud emoji here, because I do not think "over flowing water" and "the ceiling of the basement" an ever be a good thing.  It would be nice if it would just dry up and go away, but I hear little voices in my head saying "wet dry wall", "black mold" and things like that.  And no where in this scenario do I see the words "timely manner" appear.

But here is the deal, it is what it is.  No way around it.  I just flashed back to my second husband when I used the words "It is what it is".  That hit a chord in his brain that turned him into a raving lunatic, but there in again, "It is what it is."  Back to my dilemma. Today is the day I had planned to freeze my Pueblo Chile so I can have lots of green chile when company comes.  They count on it.  I will see how long the insurance guy takes.

I do have a theory, though.  I think dark thoughts draw bad Karma.  Rather then dwell on how bad October is, I need to concentrate on the good October brings.  First my birthday.  Surely I have made someone happy some where and so rather then railing against my birth, I should actually be celebrating.  Tomorrow is Sam's birthday and while all my kids have been blessings, he is the man child who will take care of me in my old age.  Yes, we will do it that way!  I am not going to be sad, I am going to be happy.

I will deal with my brother's birthday in just a couple days and this year I am going to only find good in it.  Watch for that one on Saturday.  I loved that boy and think of him every day.

Now for good thoughts on the flood of last night.  That damn floor was needing cleaned any way and it got a very good cleaning last night! I used all my towels to soak up the water and now have no washer to wash them in, but it is what it is.  There is a laundromat some where that will welcome my business,

 So I am going to pick up chile's today and deal with the insurance and thank my God above for mopping the floor!

Peace to all!  It is going to be a beautiful day!

The storm clouds gather...

One of my favorite things in life is clouds.  I have albums full of them and now I have my Picasa albums full of digital pictures.

 This is a fairly harmless shot of "maybe if we get together we can make rain" clouds.

This is a shot of drifty, buttermilk looking clouds at Garden of the Gods on one of the AIDS Walks.

.

This looks like it could really do something.

So anyway, you get the idea of the cloud fetish.  I want to go on record now as saying the clouds that are not clearly defined and hang over our heads like a foggy blanket are the ones we need to watch out for.  My state is being devastated by a silly thing called "rain".   For most of the summer we prayed for rain.  "Oh, Please God, just a little rain."  Our world was withering before our eyes.    Remember that?  Three feet of hail in Denver! 

I took Stockyards Road home on Thursday and the conflux of the Arkansas and Fountain creek was visible.  Arkansas was clear and calm.  Course it flows through the reservoir, but the Fountain was a ugly, angry brown mess.  Bear in mind that it had travelled 35 miles down here from up North and it had lost some of it's furor along the way, but it was still enough to terrify this faint little heart of mine.

It made me think of the people who are in the "eye of the weather".  How frightening that must be to have the rain just keep coming and watch your street fill up and see your property line shrinking.  It was bad enough when the fires were burning up on the mountains, but now there is nothing to stop the water when it races down hill.  And the faster it races, the more debris it picks up.  And our "powers that be" just nod and say, "Oh, a hundred year flood.  That is what it is."  Kind of sad that the loss of property and life is written off with such a simple statement.  Course there is always FEMA.

Here are my thoughts on this phenomenon;

We are a mighty nation.  We shake our fist and nations tremble.  We open our checkbook and nations grovel.  We smile and nations simper.  But when the storm clouds gather, no one is in charge.  Mother Nature has the last word.  (In my simple mind, Mother Nature and God are one and the same, but I shall call the entity Mother Nature in this missive.)  Mother Nature can not be controlled by mere mortals.  She causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust.  And she keeps no time table.  She sends earthquakes to destroy temples and fires to consume the dead wood.  She washes her earth clean.  And we, being mere mortals that we are, fall to our knees and tremble.  We beg.  We grovel.  We try to explain it away, and  much like the fires in Yellowstone, we wait.  We wait and we know that soon the green shoot of grass will appear.  The tiny pine will peek from the forest floor.  The roots will go deep and cling to the bosom of Mother Earth.  In a few years we will have a forest again and God in his heaven will smile!

So for now, I will continue to collect my clouds knowing that some day I will be seeing the very bright sun!

You can not sprinkle showers of happiness on other people without getting a few drops on yourself!

 

 

 

Still on the Ailmore place.

Just read the last post I made before I wandered off to do my craft shows.  We were on the Ailmore place and had just had our cyclone.  I have a few more memories I need to share there and then I will move on. 
I mentioned Bull Creek being right by our house.  I am going to try to figure out my directions here.  Sorry, I got confused, but if you want to look just click here and you can figure it out.  Just know that the Arkansas river runs on one side of Nickerson, Cow Creek figures in there some where on the other side and Bull Creek is a little furrow you can step across most of the time and has no water in it at all.  But it is, or was at the time, a whole different story in the Spring.  I think it is still the same because I used to make several trips down there every year and some times I like to take 96 Highway just for a change of scenery.  Starting about in Rice County the sheriffs and volunteers would be out to make sure that when cars crossed the flooded parts of the road there were no casualties.  Just one of the hazards of the area.
I recall once leaving our house and walking to check on the Shultz family, which was about 3 blocks away, and wading water all the way.  As quickly as the floods came, they receded and we were left with puddles of water in all the low places.  So we built little boats and sailed them in the puddles.  As I recall, our house was set up off the ground so the water did not get inside.  Most of the houses there were that way.  I do not recall having a pet at the time, but I sure there was an old mangy dog around some where.
Back somewhere in the far recesses of my mind I can recall my father "pulling a prank" on friend of his or at least on his wife.  Her name was Salina.  I think she was married to John Britan, the guy my dad share cropped with for many years.  All I remember is waking up and hearing them laughing and John saying "Just look at the egg my chicken laid!  I am going to take it to the newspaper."  Then they laughed some more.  "Damn, Rueben, where did you get that turkey egg?"  I do not know if anyone ever told Salina Britan that her chicken did not lay that egg, but it was a source of amusement at gatherings for a very long time as it quickly circulated through the town, and I am remembering it over 60 years later.
There are a lot of things I remember on the Ailmore place.  Some one up the road had a car and took the children to school.  They would stop at the end of our drive and let us ride with them if we were out, but if not, then we walked to school.  There was a young man about Jake's age that sometimes hung out at the house, but he preferred to hang with us girls.  Mother, Dad and Josephine would run him off the place.  I did not understand then, but now I think I do.  I thought they were just being mean because he was my "friend", but looking back, that was pretty strange.
The man right across Bull Creek on the way to town raised pigs.  Right now his name escapes me    ( Roy Keating) but some times dad would go do chores when the man left for a few days.  We always went and gathered the eggs.  That was really nice because he had a special little shed built for the eggs to be taken into, cleaned and put in crates.  Our hen house had blown away and our chickens just laid where ever they felt like laying.  Oh, but there is nothing more terrifying than reaching under one of those hens to get the egg.  I lived in mortal terror that I would be pecked.  Still afraid to do it now, so I just don't have chickens.
Jake always wanted to be a mechanic.  I recall once he wanted me to blow in the gas tank while he looked under the hood.  Then he had the bright idea to syphon the gas out of the tank and coerced Donna into sucking on the hose to get it started.  She had no idea what she was doing so she got a big mouth full of gas.  Lordy, mother liked to beat that Jake to death!  And we had to make Donna throw up and maybe there was another trip to the medical place in Hutch.
Lots of gaps in my memory back then, but remember I was very young.  Life back in those days was straight out of a John Stienbeck novel; poverty in it's purest form.  But everyone was in the same boat, the war was just over, and better days lay ahead.  I know cause we heard the adults say so and adults knew every thing!  But we were about to move again.  I had been born on one place, moved to another and was on my way to a third.  I was 7 years old and the world lay before me like an open oyster, and sorry to say, smelled about the same...a little fishy!