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As the old saying goes, "be careful what you ask for...you just might get it" With a prolonged drought in West Texas what we had been asking for was rain. And this year, this month we have gotten it. If your eyes are on the downhill side, the rain gauge at left reads over 2.5 inches. And that was just in the last two days. More specifically the last two nights. I hesitate to say it, but enough is enough. I'll rue this statement some months from now, because the commonly held community ethos in West Texas says that you can never have enough rain. But for now we've had more than enough to suit me, the |
In spite of my best efforts, or probably because of them, the roof over the den has a leak. Several years ago I noticed the beginnings of the leak around the fireplace and set about fixing it. There was some fairly obvious decay in the flashing where the chimney enters the roofline. Some synthetic tar seemed to do the job during the next year of light rains. But now with gushers arriving every night, the devious water has found another route to drain down through the roof, into the interior canned lighting and thence to the floor. Not a good situation. It has been raining for the last three weeks and the house is beginning to smell moldy like a Louisiana fishing cabin.
The dogs are none to happy either. And thusly the woman of the house is not happy and ergo, I'm not happy. The Big Gold Dog has always been thunderstorm averse, the condition manifesting itself by putting him into a catatonic state...with panting. Lot's of panting. And since he needs comfort during this crisis, he desires to be right next to the nearest human being...while panting. Three weeks of this can get on the nerves of even the best friend of a dog....or his wife. When the storms start Daphne, the outdoor dog, gives up all claims to a life outdoors and tries her best to become an indoor dog. Whining, barking, running crazily, peering in the back door with a frenzied look that says, "I'm dying out here, Pleeease let me in...now"! This approach works on me until I let her in and the frenzied running continues, except now it's frenzied running with muddy paws all over our tasteful pale tan Berber carpet. This makes the wife start her own frenzied running...after me.
With 2 months to go in the year, we are about 3 inches over our yearly average. We have been under flash flood watches and warnings continuously now for 5 days..with a tornado alert thrown in every now and then just to keep us on our toes. Five inches of rain fell in an afternoon in Andrews County to the north of us...causing all work to cease in the oil fields. Our Spanish tile patio has brown algae and scum growing on it. But as I peer out the window at the office this afternoon, the sun is blazing brightly so perhaps we're over the worst. Maybe. This is what I thought the last two afternoons as I peered out the window to see the sun blazing brightly. But it's OK, you know in West Texas you can never get enough rain!
