Thursday, August 28, 2008, 22:55
What Was That Wet Stuff?
I think we might have gotten about an inch of rain on Wednesday night. It's hard to tell, though, seeing as we took the down the rain gauge. I mean, what's the use of having the rain gauge up when it never rains?
We had a fund-raiser at the fairgrounds in town on Wednesday evening for our church parsonage. A pie and dessert sale. It coincided with the pep rally where they introduce the football players and the high school marching band and whatnot.
In the morning on Wednesday, it rained a little bit. Just a trace. Then the sun came out and it got very humid. By Wednesday night, when we were selling pie and dessert, the sky was clouding over again. The rain held off until later in the evening on Wednesday. It began to rain in earnest after we got home. It was kind of strange, listening to rain falling on the roof when we haven't heard that sound in quite a while.
The pie and dessert sale went well. It's one of those "only in a small town" things, I think. Randy and I picked some more blackberries Tuesday night, and I made a blackberry pie to take for the fund raiser. All together, we made about $360. That amounts to maybe 200 pieces of pie. We sold ice cream with the pie, too, and coffee. The Kiwanis were selling burgers and brats.
The treasurer for the parsonage fund says that the amount we collected might be enough to pay the heat for the parsonage for one month this winter. It's a big, old, beautiful turn-of-the-century house that our parish has owned for more than 50 years now. It's in a part of town that was not hit by the tornado in 1958. Lucky for us. It seems kind of funny that the parish owns that house. It's a tiny parish made up of three small churches. A little overkill perhaps.
And then, after we got home from the fairgrounds, it started raining. What remains to be seen is if the rain was a fluke. Or whether it will keep on precipitating. After five years of drought, this may be a permanent condition for our part of world. It seems like we're in the "lee of the rock" so the speak, from the heat island created by the Twin Cities west of here.
As for the road past here, they finished paving by our place at around 4 p.m. on Tuesday. The blacktop is still really soft yet. And if you walk out on the new blacktop, you get tar and oil on the bottom of your shoes. I hesitate to take Pixie out for a walk along the new blacktop. I'm afraid she will get oil and tar on the bottom of her little Sheltie feet. I wonder how long it will take the road to "settle down?" I don't have much personal experience with it. This is the first time the road has been paved again in nearly 35 years.
And here's a funny thing. The company that paved the road does not do interfaces with driveways. That is, they just pave past the driveway and leave a drop from the road to the driveway. The town patrolman had to haul in crushed rock and bring the bobcat to smooth things over. Without the crushed rock, we would probably end up peeling the blacktop off at the edge of the driveway when we plow snow this winter.
So here's the funny thing. They don't do driveways. But they paved an interface with the neighbor's FIELD driveway. The field driveway is hardly ever used. Go figure.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Tuesday, August 26, 2008, 17:58
An Exceptionally Noisy Day (At Long Last!)
Boy, it sure is *noisy* here at Rural Route 2. Dump trucks. Back-up beepers. Empty equipment trailers. Jake brakes. Rollers. Water trucks. Pixie barking.
After two years of living on a dirt road -- they are working on paving the road past our place.
There has been a constant stream of dump trucks, water trucks, rollers and jake brakes since very early this morning. The truck drivers seem to be having a lot of fun using the jake brakes. If they are working in a municipality such as a city or a village, they can't use their jake brakes, usually, because most municipalities have ordinances about such things and only allow them in an emergency. Out here, they can use their jake brakes to their heart's content.
The roller is an interesting piece of equipment. They have been watering down the dirt road because it is so dreadfully dry. Then they have been driving back and forth and back and forth with the roller. The road is about 100 feet from the house. And the roller rumbles and thunders and crashes as it drives past. The whole house shakes -- from the main beam running through the center of the house right down to the foundation footings beneath the basement. Dishes rattle in the cupboard. It sounds like the whole house is going to come crashing down around my ears.
When the roller goes past, my kitties come scooting across the floor on their bellies, tails fluffed up to twice their normal size, looking up at the ceiling. I think they think the house is coming down around their ears too.
And then, every time a dump truck stops outside our driveway and you hear the squeak and woooossshhhhh! of the air brakes, then Pixie starts barking. She barks at the back-up beepers, too, as they back up in our driveway to turn around. She also barked at the roller.
And they haven't even started paving yet! They've just been getting ready to pave!
I suppose, after the road has been paved, it will start raining. The road has been so dry that even a car or truck driving very slowly throws up a big cloud of dust that hangs over the yard and the trees and horse pastures for an hour or two. It doesn't take much rain to settle the dust. But we haven't even gotten enough for that over the past month, so the road is exceptionally dry.
I was going to work with the Isabelle this morning, putting on the bridle and the saddle and whatnot. But I decided against it. She is not terribly agitated by all of the noise. But she is "on alert." And I want her to concentrate on our work. Not the work that's going on out on the road.
I haven't seen my little black kitty cat Juliette all day, and I would imagine she is hunkered down in the big pines across the road. I probably won't see her until this evening, if then. She usually comes in the house in the morning to get something to eat. But with all of the noise out on the road, I'm sure she's dug in somewhere to wait it out.
I suppose, since it is not raining, they will keep working on the road until sunset. I don't know if they will get done today or not. But they ought to be done in a day or two. I hope.
LeAnn R. Ralph