Other possible titles for this post:
- And it was still raining!
- Why I’m so glad we have a brand-new roof over our head
- Why our yard is perpetually wet and muddy
- Where is the gopher wood?
![100_3781[1]](http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7006/6577499653_e05afcb7be.jpg)
This was last Friday morning. I was supposed to go work at the library. I drove to my local library (I volunteer at a different branch than the one I volunteer at and I had to pick up a hold) and the weather was scary. I kept looking at the sky thinking “That looks like tornado weather; I should have stayed home.” Sure enough, when I got to the library, I was told it there was a tornado warning. So I stayed in their basement until that passed; apparently, the tornado was sighted within about three blocks from my house. I returned home and decided not to drive to the slightly farther away library. It was kind of scary rain.
And then I look out of the back window. Oh. My.
Thankfully, our yard drained pretty well once it stopped pouring. The yard, of course, remained muddy for days as it did for the entire month of May.
I guess this means that you don’t need a sprinkler system in back! Thank heavens for small favors!
When we first moved in, Ryan was saying we’d need to budget for a sprinkler system — having grown up in Utah, he thought it was a given! I kept saying “I don’t think we’ll need one!”
Does Ryan remember irrigation turns at Grandpa Harwards? My parents lived in what was once a rual community. They bought water shares and had irrigation turns. We had a ditch, mud lined and full of grasses, weeks and asparagus, in our back yard. We had to jump the ditch to get to the tree houses or to take the short cut to the elementary school. When the water came, the ditch was full to overflowing making for a dangerous situation as it was not fenced at all. On the corner of our lot was the head gate which was a 4X4x3 foot deep hole with gates that controlled which lot the water would go down. The water turns could come at anytime day or night and it was your responsibility to open the gate at the beginning of your hour and close it at the end. There were some nasty fights over someone thinking they didn’t get their turn. Dad would flood the 1/2 acre garden and then flood our 1/2 acre side and front yard. We loved this. We’d strip down to our underwear and run and splash through the water. Dad would go cut a 2X4 into a boat shape, pound a nail in the front and tie a string on it and we’d pull the boat around the pond. I’m pretty sure my kids got a turn at that. Do you remember Ryan? I had a picture of michelle at about age 2 after she fell into the ditch, luckily after the water had been turned down. She was covered in black mud, head to foot. She found this picture and tore it up about a year later because she didn’t like the way she looked covered in mud! Similiar to the time I fell off the corral railing into a pool of horse manure and urine!!! Mom washed me off with a cold hose and I was totally offended!