Pioneer Stock

OK, when your brothers start calling to check up on you, it's time to post again. Sorry for the lack of news. We've been cleaning up from the first flooding and struggling to get our computer back online, and then Monday night we had a second round of storms that caused problems.

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My mom keeps telling me we come from good pioneer stock, so I am tough enough to carry these babies. Well, those pioneer genes are sure being tested these days!

Like everyone else in the soggy Midwest, we continue to do battle with the weather – and we are some of the lucky ones! Monday night we had another round of storms roll through. More than an inch of rain in less than 30 minutes and 70 mph winds. The storm woke me up and I got up to check the weather. Then we checked the basement.

One of our window wells was filling up with water from the rain shooting off the roof and over the gutters. The seal at the corner of the window broke and water started pouring in. Fortunately, we (and by we, I mostly mean Jeff) were able to minimize the water coming in, and between the push broom and the wet vac, just had a little carpet get wet again. I’m ready to rip the carpet out and replace it with tile and area rugs.

A little pioneer ingenuity in the form of duct tape and some foam on the window and a garbage can wedged in that window well, and we got through the rest of the night pretty dry. What did the pioneers do without duct tape? I suppose they just used baling wire instead.

Three hours after the storm passed through, the power went out. Fortunately, it was only part of the neighborhood, so I woke a good neighbor with a 2:30 a.m. phone call and we ran 500 feet of extension cord to their house to run our sump pump. Otherwise, we’d have been wet all over again. Last week they plugged their sump into our generator, so Jeff called it good karma giving back.

Tuesday morning we had one more deluge. It looks like our last for a while. Knock on wood. Another good soul brought a generator and we’re hooked back up—sump pump and refrigerator anyway. After 25 hours our power company FINALLY restored our power. We're really tired of 20+ hour power outages. At least Tuesday was dry, sunny, and not too hot, so it was bearable. Though I really appreciated the hot shower, hair dryer and flush toilet this morning!

Here’s hoping for dry weather all around.