I Love To Go A Gardening
Growing Our Life in Northern Michigan
Stormy Anniversary
We usually keep informed about the weather because….well, we really enjoy watching the weather. Knowing the forecasts helps me decide what to wear for the day, or whether or not I should water the garden, or whether to expect severe storms. When I was younger, the forecasts weren’t all that reliable, but as meteorologists have gained more knowledge, I think they have gotten more skilled at forecasting.
I didn’t see anything in the forecast for rain last night, but I woke in the night and heard rain on the roof and saw a flash of lightning before I fell back to sleep. This morning when I went out to let the chickens and ducks out of their coop, I found about 2.5 inches in the bucket I use to refill the chicken’s water bowl. I always dump out the water at night and hang it on one of the posts, so know that’s how much rain we actually got. Wow.
The rain was so heavy that it washed out some of our driveway up near the top of the hill. This afternoon I worked to fill in the gullies that the rain had made. We could use more stones for the driveway, but we will have to make do until we get more money. I have mostly won my battle with erosion but the steep driveway couldn’t handle the 2.5 inches of rain.
After I filled in the gullies, I built more rock dams. I built them on the slope of the hill near the clothesline, thinking that the rain must be coming from there. However, EJ later said that the heavy rain pours off the roof of the house, hits the pavement in front of the garage, and rushes down the driveway. He wants to put in gutters and rain spouts there to prevent that. We are adding that to our List of Things to Do and Buy.
We have a pile of potato stones that we bought from the gravel guy our first summer at our house. They are called “potato stones” because the stones that are the size of potatoes. I use them to build the little dams. Since I was building dams not far from the rock pile today, I didn’t get out the wheelbarrow. Instead, I filled an empty kitty litter bucket with rocks and carried the short distance to where I was building the dams. As I was scooping up the rocks, I felt something unrock-like in my hands. I looked down and I was holding a very large toad that had hidden among the rocks. Oops. I carefully put him back down, and went into the house for my camera. When I returned, the poor thing was so scared that he peed. I told him (or her?) that I wouldn’t hurt him, and I went around to the other side of the pile to get rocks so I wouldn’t disturb him.
Today is the second anniversary of a very bad storm in Northern Michigan. I read at the National Weather Service Facebook page that the 2015 storm was the “costliest severe thunderstorm event in northern Michigan recorded history! Widespread wind damage and large hail during the nearly 10 hour event was estimated to have caused roughly 82 million dollars in total losses.” The storm occurred just a couple of months after we moved here. Here is a video of the storm that I took:
I’m really glad that we didn’t get a storm like that today!
I Love To Go A Gardening 
We had some storms our way but no damage just a cool down and windy. You made a friend forever in your little toad rescue, and hope you have no more washout’s Enjoy and love to all.
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I’m glad you didn’t have any damage! Love to you and Bob! We think of you often. If you ever get up our way, we’d love to have you stop in for a visit. ❤
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