Fur In The Paint

Now I know what your thinking. “Geez, mona . . . this is supposed to be an art blog, and all you do is talk about the weather.” Well let me tell ya, it is hard to hold a pastel while clutching a candle, huddled around the radio and keeping an eye on the sky. Yet another wave of storms passed through last night. We were very blessed. It literally grazed by us on to the NW and SE. Tornados and straight line winds of up to 70mph. Large hail and drenching rain. We are still in a flood watch.

This first photo is the view of our hay fields from behind the farm. Don’t let all that green in the foregound fool you, there is water under there. The grasses are shoulder to chest height. No kidding. Chicory’s fence is almost completely hidden by the grasses on the otherside of the farm. Fortunately his pasture is on a hillside so it has to get really bad before he is in trouble. And if the water gets that high, we are all in trouble.

The second photo is our road which leads to town. And the last photo is our neighbors pasture. I am estimating it is at 4-5 foot deep. Those tippy tops of fence posts you see are draft horse posts. Bigger and taller than the average. Whew!

Thank goodness a friend of mine called. All she said was “Get in the basement now! There’s a tornado in Laurens (17 miles away) and heading for Plover” (6 miles away) We had no clue. We had satelite tv so no local news interuptions. We never did make it to the basement, though we had the door open, light on and an oil lamp at the ready.

The flooding is much worse farther down state. They are seeing record flooding. In one city 3900 homes were evacuated and another is evacuating as I write this. The water is expected to crest the levy sometime in the next 24hours. I am so hoping it is going to stop raining soon. It has rained everyday now it seems like for many weeks. Some lives have even been lost to these storms which is unusual for this area. How deeply saddening.

So I am going to write about two events that illustrate why I love it here despite the weather. Being the critter girl that I am they are both animal related.

The first was a flock of geese, about 30 flying overhead. Mike and I were working in the garden a couple of days back, and they flew so low you could hear the snapping of the wings and they flapped, as well as the roar of the wind flowing over them. It was soooo cool!

The second was, I was standing in our dining room looking out the window. We have a 100 year old farmhouse which has its original windows. They are approximately 3ft. x 5ft. A great view. A doe came walking up to the window and started grazing in flower bed. She was less than 2 feet away with just the glass seperating us. I was mesmerized. She would much up big mouthfuls and lift her head to look around. She was so close you could see the grass sliding down her neck. She stayed for only 3 or 4 minutes but I was thrilled to have this encounter.

I do plan to get back to blogging about art, weather permitting. We unplug the computer during every storm so if I promise to post something and don’t follow through, it is probably weather related. I am planning on writing next about the Orphan Arts Bill, and from there who know’s.

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