Rains Continue--Where's the Ark?

It has continued to rain Friday night and Saturday, when the precipitation attempted to turn to snow, but more resembled sleet than snow. There is so much flooding in our little town and surrounding towns. Several friends have lakes surrounding their homes, threatening to come in. The Trenton fire department was out today with the pumper truck, attempting to divert standing water and lessen the pressure on full drains. Thank you, volunteer fire fighters and others who are keeping our town safe during this severe weather.

It is 7pm Saturday night and I just returned a friend to her home down the road. We drove through a river. A river! I was sure glad I had brought the Suburban because I'm afraid it would have swallowed our little car--with the amount of spray we surged through. The drain to the north west of our home normally empties through the culvert under the road into the swamp west of us. It is full and the culvert can't handle the volume of water pushing its way through, so it found the path of least resistance over the road. The town just fixed that road this summer. I hope it doesn't wash away. If it does, we might be living on a dead end for a while... or we will need to build an Ark!

At least we can still access the main roads to the East. And our home is luckily on high ground compared to that river. The swamp to the West has plenty of room to hold excess water below our ground level, so it keeps us safe from flooding. Plus, as I have mentioned before, we have no basement--on purpose. The water table here is normally about 4 feet below the surface, so we knew from the beginning that forcing a basement would have disastrous results. And so we chose to avert those precarious consequences and build a slab-on-grade instead. That may have been the best decision we have ever made!

On a positive note, the best thing about a rainy day is that it inspires me to clean the house. And since we had no other plans today and didn't really want to go out if we could avoid it, everyone helped scrub the house top to bottom. It feels so good when the house is clean. Despite the inclement weather,

we feel snug and dry in our little house that Dave built,

playing games...

baking treats, watching movies, and enjoying eachother's company.

Heavenly Father has blessed us abundantly. We trust in His care. We know that He watches over all His children. We pray He will bless us all according to our needs and His will.

It has just stopped snowing. For now. There is only an inch accumulated on our front lawn. And everything is soggy. But water is necessary for growth. And so we will embrace it. And journey on.

Because rain will make the flowers grow. (Just so you know, that's a line from one of my all time favorite songs from Les Miserables. It runs through my head at times like these and helps me keep perspective.)

I hope you are staying warm and dry and safe.

Love,

Rad-Mom

p.s. (added Sunday afternoon) The temperature dropped below freezing after Saturday night's post and Sunday morning we awoke to a frozen world. Everything was frozen! The river over the road was even frozen, making it a veritable danger zone! I took a picture at 8AM:

However, while we were at church, the sun came out and melted all the ice, which then the water ran off the road into the proper drains which were not as full as last night. So the roads around town that were sheets of ice in the morning were dry at noon when we drove home from church! Amazing!

While at church, we also learned from our neighbor that the excess of water was due to the canal company making a breach in the canal to reduce the likelihood of flooding a few neighbors' homes. Since several homes up the road are below the level of the canal near them and the canal had reached overflow point, the impending threat was lessened by diverting the water another direction... our direction. Somehow knowing that the river over the road was on purpose to save some neighbors' homes makes it feel much less threatening to me. What's a small section of road when compared to people's homes anyway? I can drive around!

At church today, we also learned the story behind the rumors that a plane crashed in a field near our house. We saw several emergency vehicles driving back and forth along our road Friday night, and wondered what happened. Of course, most of our volunteer emergency responders and fire fighters attend church, so we got the scoop. A small plane did, in fact, make an emergency landing 2 fields North of us on Friday night. The engine stopped for some reason, and the pilot selected that spot to attempt a landing. He succeeded in keeping himself alive, which was his goal. We are grateful to know that there are so many in this area willing to drop everything to help someone in trouble. Thanks, emergency responders!

I discover so much truth at church. I love this village!