I’ve Seen Fire and Rain

This week was highlighted by the weather, again. A frontal boundary decided to camp out over Southeastern Minnesota for about four days. During that period, the area was plagued by numerous thunderstorms. As you can see, the picture on the left shows what lightening can do. As in the words of Monty Python, it appears to only be a minor flesh wound.

Since I had gone home for the weekend, I did not attempt to drive back until Wednesday due to the weather. When I arrived on Wednesday, the Root River which I can see from our land was flowing out of its banks. We were very fortunate to only get 4″ of rain. Areas to our south, got up to 11″ of rain! Our gravel road suffered the worst damage with gullies up to 8 to 10 inches deep. It took a number of passes with the tractor’s grading blade to make the road half-way decent again. A few more rains and I’ll have to order more gravel again.

Then if the rain wasn’t enough, it turned extremely hot with very high humidity and no wind. I cannot recall any time in my life where conditions were as bad as this. I’ve been in Southern Florida in the middle of the summer. I’ve been in Dallas, Texas in the summer. I’ve been in the desert Southwest in the summer. And believe it or not, this was worse. The heat index was 116 degrees and no wind.

I tried to work early in the morning, but most mornings were sopping wet with zero visibility and fog. It’s pretty weird having dense fog at 76 degrees. I guess I’ll stop complaining now and get back to work. I was able to get 10 out of the 16 sides of the deck completed. And, with a bit of a cool front heading our way, I hope to be done with the deck by Wednesday at the latest. Then it’s on to the floor joists for the house.

Until next time, keep cool.