Flash Flood

First an update on the California house. We got a great offer on the house late last night. It's for a little more than we asked, As Is, the buyer is already qualified for the offered amount, they put down a large good faith payment, the lender is a good one our agent likes and it's a 30 day escrow as opposed to 45. Lu and I talked it over with our agent and have decided to accept it. The paperwork begins today and man there is a bunch of it to do. We signed the offer sheet (all 8 pages!) and fired it off. With a bit of luck escrow will close at the end of August. Lu and I are ecstatic. We have been truly blessed. The power of prayer is strong. Thank you all for yours!

A couple of days ago the skies started looking pretty ominous and we got the Emergency Broadcast interruption on the TV. Within about an hour it looked like this outside.

It rained like that for a couple of hours. As it died down we decided to walk the neighborhood and take a look at Gould Wash which is just half a block from the house. It's normally a dry wash but it was pretty full of swiftly rushing muddy water.

Around the block there's another bridge over the wash. Next to it was a huge old cottonwood tree that decided it was time to come crashing down.

Another view of the flood from that same bridge. That's a lot of water.

Fortunately it didn't crest it's banks so flooding was kept to a minimum. It has before. A few years ago it was bad enough to flood our basement. We went back the next day to check and the water was mostly gone. If you take a look you can see the high water mark. I figure it was about 6 feet deep at it's highest.

A neighbor captured some of it on video. It includes that big tree that crashed.



We had some more rain and lightning yesterday and the forecast is a little uncertain to my mind. We shall see. In the meantime Lu and I are celebrating the pending sale of the California house. If it does go through I can get back to working on this house for a bit. It's been a while since we were down to a single house. I cannot wait. It will simplify our lives immensely and in these days that is a very good thing.
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Hurricane Sandy

For all of you in it's path Lu and I pray for your safety and that of all your loved ones.

Batten the hatches and stay safe.

Six

Apparently There Is A Need To Fear

Because Underdog Angus surely is not. Remember the psychotic weather I mentioned on Sunday? Yeah, it hit Stage Ridiculous yesterday. The TV suddenly went to the Emergency Broadcast screen and we were given a Severe Thunderstorm Warning. Right Now! We Are So Not Kidding! Run, run for your lives! Aaiiee!!!

Sure enough, within minutes of the broadcast we saw this.

In case it's not clear that's hail. The broadcast warned of half dollar sized, "Holy shit get to shelter immediately and kiss your vehicle goodbye" hail but we didn't get any quite that large. Still, it was large enough to sting if someone were to, oh I don't know, say walk out into it. Just to see of course. Not that I'd know.

Enough fell to give the ground just a hint of Christmas cheer. Now where did I leave my sled?

After the hail stopped it turned into rain. Not the gentle kiss of a warm Summer sprinkling but a torrential downpour that had me thinking of TEOTWAWKI and wondering if the Pirate Ship would actually float.

At least I got to verify that I got the pitch on the porch roof correct. It's supposed to slope down from both roof eaves to that corner. It would have been even better if I'd actually put up the rain gutters so I didn't have The Niagara Falls coming off my roof but you have to find the ray of sunshine wherever you can. Even if it's raining hard enough float lead ingots.

And where was Angus, AKA NOT Underdog, while all this was happening you ask? 
"Hey, that's hail. Nobody mentioned anything about hail. I'm not coming out til the bad noise is gone I don't care how many cookies you offer. Piss off."

My hero.

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