Severe Sunday Continued and the rain barrel is full

Okay, it's not actually a rain barrel. It's a muck bucket. It's not used as a muck bucket either but a toy for the boss to play with and in, like this morning, when it looked like this:

He was soaked in 3.948 seconds of walkin out the door. The kid just can't leave water or mud alone. Not only was his arms in this bucket up to his elbows but his pants somehow got wet up to his knees, with no mud on them. He had overturned one of the dogs' big water dishes, actually a rubber tub for grain, and used it to stand on to dip his legs into the water.
After the first round of storms yesterday afternoon the roots from the maple all stood on end:

Then around 6 p.m., after there were two warnings of tornadoes, each within 7 miles from our place, the second storm came rollin in. This time we got to see clouds! And it was beautiful!









And it was dark!







We had high winds but not the straight-line winds that folks close to the storm had.

Our winds blew the rain into the louvers of the vents under the eaves of the house. We had some dripping on the stairs and some pooling up in none other than....a light fixture. Yeah, I went to turn the light on over the sink this mornin and it didn't work. It was dark so I didn't even think to look up. At lunch it was dark in the house because of all the cloud cover and I remembered it didn't work so I looked up and saw this:

Very safe. And since the house has been wired a little differently, we have to shut off all the breakers in order to drain this thing. I'll be honest. I'm a little jumpy.
Signing off and thankful to have a somewhat dry but not burned down house!
P.S. After draining that one, we've since found another light fixture in the same condition. This time just half full of rain water.
P.S.S. This has only happened in one other storm in the 7 1/2 years we've lived here.

Severe Sunday

The meteorologists have said that today the storms could be the most severe we've seen yet this season.

Ominous, dark, heavy. Severe. Watches. Warnings. Most of that describes Hoss, otherwise known as JD. I wonder if it has anything to do with the weather because that's exactly the adjectives for the weather outside right now. We've had no sun. None. It's been overcast the whole day with no definition to the clouds. We haven't been able to see the storms roll across the prairie like we usually do witht the huge bright thunderheads.

Yesterday there was a line of storms from just west of OKC, up through Wellington and Winfield, on up through Andover, Augusta, El Dorado and on to KC. At the racetrack last night, the Nascar Truck Series was in progress when they had to call a halt to the race and 30 minutes later a tornado was spotted in that area and went by the track.

Today there have been a handful of tornadoes already to the west of us 'round Greensburg and Pratt and farther south in the panhandle of OK. Our whole state is in a tornado watch with some already in the warnings. The cells today are poppin up farther west and south than they did yesterday, which, when you think of polo, 'man-line-ball', you just have to switch it to 'town-line-storm' and that's how it happens out here. Generally speakin, if the storms are headed in a NE direction and Guymon, OK and Anthony and Harper, KS are lined up in there then we're gonna get hit too.



Definitions of the day:

Hail:half dollar sized, golfball sized

Strong/severe winds: as in 70-75 mph, tornadic

Lightning: cloud to ground, like the one that just hit 6 seconds ago. Hello cable! Please stay on!

Heavy rain: as in 'it's rainin like a cow peein' on a flat rock' kinda hard or as in 'rainin buckets' or 'rainin cats and dogs', torrential

Tornadic activity: the 'weather ones' have said that today is a perfect set-up for severe storms and large, violent and long-lived tornadoes.

It ain't a kitten out there tryin to play. It's a big mad polecat stretchin her claws and flexin her muscles. The thunder is comin in loud cracks followed by giant rolls. The raindrops are huge. Okay, now the rain is just plain torrential. I can't see more than 100 yds away. The tv is strugglin to keep cable so I'll probably be shut down here soon from rain or lightning.

The street is flooded slightly:

Our front yard is flooded more than slightly:



Hold on, the sirens are goin off.....okay, the warnings are for 4 miles to our east and on up in a NE direction. No tornado yet, but strong rotation.
Portions of our side yard look like it's in dire straits:

Well, the grass seed in the front yard might be gettin the required 2" today!

Pole Fishin' on the Ninnescah

Yesterday we went to the Ninnescah (known round these parts as Cougar Country) to fish with the boys. We refrained from tellin Wyatt about the trip until Saturday mornin for fear that he would forego sleepin more than 24 hours in anticipation. Plus, he's only 2 1/2 and doesn't quite grasp the concept of time in minutes, hours, let alone days. When we told him that mornin, he was all about packin the truck.



I'm not sure why he wanted to drag the cooler all the way out to the road but I convinced him it needed to sit by the truck so we could pack ice around the food.

This is the view lookin upriver:

It was a perfect day as far as bein outside. We had cloud cover most the day except for short periods of sun later in the afternoon. Uncle Mike was the reigning king of catches. He caught 4 or 5 fish and one soft shell. Soft shells just look pre-historic. They look like you should be out runnin for your life from dinosaurs and hiding from pterodactyls. Straight outta Jurassic Park is the feelin I get evertime I see one of these. It's hard not to jump when a shadow passes over the ground and throw my arms up to fight off a homosapian-hungry flying dinosaur.





Wyatt was all sorts of excited about the turtle until the thing felt land beneath his feet and tried to bail. He went clawin right in Wy's direction to which Wy replied with a big scream, a scramble to get away and of course, tears. I'm sorry, but yes, I laughed. I also held him when he came runnin over to me but by laughin it got him settled down and pretty soon he was gigglin about the turtle tryin to get away.
Aunt Rene caught a fish and had the boss reel it in.

He was proud as punch!

Here's the boss, checkin on lines and patrollin the bank.

He did really well with the whole 3 foot-drop-off-into-the-river thing. There was just a couple times my mama's heart almost stopped beatin. I wore shorts and a light shirt just in case I'd have to jump in and drag him back to the edge. I didn't want any resistance with swimmin if I had to put my life-saving skills to work.
'Ole Hoss had quite a time.

He was pretty sleepy by the time we got to the river so shortly after we got set up I took him up to the truck, nursed him, and strapped him into his car seat for a little siesta with the music on. After his nap, and some lunch, he was a much happier kid. We tied off his walker to a sapling behind him so he wouldn't try wind-surfing off the bank and into the water.

I swear the kid believes that walker is equipped with floats, all-terrain tires with snow chains, wings and a motor!
We did some scoutin around for more fishin holes. The guys went down river, under the bridge, and caught a few and lost a few. Aunt Rene and I went upriver and found nothin but slick-as-snot muddy banks, spiders, thorn bushes and lots of life. Here are some pictures.

Now for the other part:



My camera kept focusing on the background so the spider is very blurry. I didn't think to put it on manual focus and I couldn't find a leaf big enough to hold behind it to bring the spider into focus.

Cricket frogs-try cathin those suckers on a muddy bank!

Yeah, it didn't work out so well for me.





It was either this fungus growth that stunk like feces or the fact that there was a fox den just beneath all these clumps of black fungus, but I'm tellin ya, it stunk!



The light wasn't the greatest when I took this shot. As I stood and looked up the tree the green foliage was a stark contrast against the dark bark.

Another den, this time from a smaller animal:

Last, but not least, the boss got in one more frightened scream when I tried to put this little guy on his shoulder and take a picture:

He wanted N-O-N-E of it! He was content to watch him in my hands and no closer!



Hoss wanted to grab him right away and without a doubt, put him in his mouth.



That, I didn't let happen, but he did almost eat a worm. Just kiddin. But he would, if we'd a let him!