Showing posts with label storms. Show all posts
Showing posts with label storms. Show all posts

Thursday, September 21, 2017

Mother Nature....



Whew!

Mother Nature's been pitching quite the
Hissy Fit, lately.

Fires in the West and Northwest.

Earthquakes in Mexico.

And, hurricane's....lots of hurricanes.

It's been years, since we were in Mexico City 
or San Juan, Puerto Rico.

But, just his last spring, we were in 
St. Thomas and Dominica.

We took back to back Caribbean cruises.


We went to St. Thomas on each cruise.


It's a fairly dry island.  There are no natural rivers, and it might not rain for months.


Ironically named, Water Island sits in the middle of the bay.  See the big cacti?

Magan's Bay

The island depends on desalinization of sea water,
which supports a bigger population, as well as the 
vital tourist industry.


More people means more buildings.  And, when hurricanes come, 
more things to damage.

Photos I've seen show major damage....and, almost no green left.
Trees completely stripped.


Very sad...


Dominica was on our second cruise...the one where Mr. P had the flu.


So, we didn't tour the island.


We did get off, and shopped right at the port.


Back on the ship, we could see quaint, colorful houses, along the water.
Colorful, but not very sturdy.

I'm thinking these houses are no longer standing.

Dominica took a direct hit from Category Five Maria.
There is massive destruction there.


We were told that it rains somewhere on the island, every day.
This was our view as we sailed away.

These islands depend on tourism for their living.
Let's hope they can get back up and running very soon.

I know they'll give it a great try...
just like here in the States...Texas, Louisiana and Florida.
The fire ravaged West.
And, people in Mexico.

We have hope...and, faith.
We've booked a cruise next fall, to go back to these islands
Mr. P missed.

It's time for Mother Nature to settle herself down.

Have a good, and safe weekend.

Happy Gardening...
~~Linda~~
Posted by Linda/patchwork at 12:47 PM 0 comments
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Wednesday, September 6, 2017

Stormy Weather...


We've had some stormy weather, here in Texas.

Brought to us by a guy named Harvey.


We had some wind...
and 18 inches of rain!

But, it was slow...over two days...so no flooding here.


A lot of it soaked into our SO-DRY soil.
But, enough ran off to make the creek flow again.
That's a lot of water.


Our daughter lives a little over 100 miles southeast of us.

They were inside the center circulation, for three days.
LOTS of wind.  They lost a few trees.
And, over 30 inches of rain!


The trash can saved the fence.


But, miraculously, they had no damage to their 100+ year old house.

And, there was beauty, under the debris.


They've gathered up supplies, and have a pallet of water, to take to those less fortunate.


The jeep looked worse than this...
with MOSQUITOES...
before they got back from the first trip over to Corpus Christi.  

Horrible monsters, making things even more miserable.



We've greened up here.  Amazing how fast we've gone from dead,
to back to life again.

There are people whose lives will never be the same again.
Towns all along the Texas Coast, almost wiped away.
Towns who don't make the news.

But, Texans are tough...
and, stubborn.
They don't give up easily.



Another monster is bearing down on America.
Let's all pray for the people in it's path...
and hope it doesn't make it all the way.

Stay safe....



Happy Gardening...
~~Linda~~
Posted by Linda/patchwork at 1:28 PM 1 comments
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Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Top 'O the Morning....


We had a bit of a storm last night.
A lot of noise. A little wind. 
And, some nice rain.



But, the day started nice and sunny, with everything newly washed.

My new little pig planter..a gift from our daughter's family...
was soaking up the sun, on the front porch.


The sun was lighting up the fenced yard.

I love the morning light, on the beds.

Making the dark spots glow a little.

Shining on the Rio...

and, making the fountain sparkle.

It shines across the porch...

making fun light and shadow.

Waking up the new Tree Aloe...another gift...from our son's family.
(Do my kids know me, or what?)

The Side yard is mostly in shadow...making the light in the 
Garden Grove glow....
What's that back there?

Another limb down.  Looks like it may have broken during the Big Storm, last week.
I guess the wind last night, brought it to the ground.

Glad I did the walk around. I might have seen this after the limb pick up, today.

It's always good to take a garden walk.

Hope your garden is glowing today.

Happy Gardening...
~~Linda~~
Posted by Linda/patchwork at 12:46 PM 0 comments
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Sunday, May 1, 2016

May 1...


Well...we made it to May.
Bet you didn't think you'd hear from me so soon.

The night after my last post,
showing you all the work and pretty iris,
we had quite a storm.

At 3:00 in the morning.
What is it with 3:00 in the morning, for storms here?
Like Halloween, it seems to be some kind of cosmic signal.

Anyway...


It hailed...


Not huge hail...but, larger than we liked.
(the wine cork was the closest thing I had, for scale. 
That was really good wine, on our cruise.)

The worse part was the wind.
Reports are, we had gusts to 60 or 70 mph.


It tried to pull up the windmill.
We've had 60 mph here before,
and the windmill never budged.


It brought down some good sized limbs here.


And, just generally made a mess.





More clean up!
How lucky can a girl get?

We were really lucky, though.
No real damage.

But, it did do some damage next door.


Giant limbs, from two different trees, came crashing down.


It landed on the AC unit. Didn't do it much good.

But, even then, they were lucky.
It missed the roof, and the car in the driveway.

It wasn't long before people arrived with equipment,
and before evening, those limbs were firewood and mulch.

There were the sounds of chainsaws all over the neighborhood.
But, I haven't heard of any injuries or big damage.

We were all lucky, here.
The storm kept going, creating much more damage.

I hope none of you were in it's path.

Stay Safe...
~~Linda~~
Posted by Linda/patchwork at 4:28 PM 5 comments
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Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Into Each Life, Some Rain Must Fall....


Or, maybe a lot of rain.

On October 30th, it started raining here about 10:00 p.m.
Softly at first.  Then it began to POUR.
And, it poured and it poured.

By 4:30 a.m., it began to let up.
By then, we had over a FOOT of rain here.

Remember my boast about my new bed?


How it had worked with a three inch rain?
Two of those inches in a hour.


Well...after two inches an hour, for SIX hours,
it wasn't so pretty.


The water came pouring over the brick edging.  It rolled up the cardboard
and the newspaper we'd laid under the mulch.


It washed out gravel and picked up stepping stones, 
and stacked one on top of another.


It sheared off weeds and grass, from under the newspaper and mulch.


It washed debris against our not-so-sturdy new fenced area.


It washed stones from the Rio.


And, crushed granite, .....


....into the Rio.


It built up debris against the house and the fences.

3:00 a.m., Thursday, October 31, 2013

It rushed like this, through the circular drive, for many hours.
And, deposited about 4" of rain IN the garage.

We worked hard to keep it out of the house, 
sweeping it off the front porch as fast as we could.
That worked.


By morning's light, the waters had receded a bit.
But, it had done some damage.


It washed away some of the cart path.
But, the creek had gone down enough to be inside its banks.


Large trees, and a smoker from down the street, deposited on the 10th tee box.


These trees, slammed against a low water crossing bridge, must have contributed
to the water backing up.

We were SO lucky.  The water is out of the garage, with no real damage.
We can restore the mulch and the plants.

But, many of our neighbors had water rushing 
THROUGH THEIR HOUSES!

Carpets are ripped up, and laying in driveways.
Not sure how much wall and furniture damage there is.

But, as far as I know, nobody was hurt.
In other areas of this flood, that wasn't the case.

9:00 a.m. October 31.

People were being smart, and not trying to cross Cypress Creek here.
This was way higher than we had seen before.

So, today I'm grateful we are all OK.

We're looking into flood insurance.
And, we're buying some sand bags.

We had about 20" of rain at Patchwork Garden, in October.
That's plenty, thanks.

Did I mention, we have rain forecast for today?

Happy Gardening...
~~Linda~~
Posted by Linda/patchwork at 11:05 AM 8 comments
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