SEPTEMBER 2024

Ark, did you get some of Helene's rain?
We are getting a little bit of wind from it and it is supposed to rain for a little while late morning.

ELLEN:
 We got LOTS of rain off of the hurricane.  And besides the hurricane, we had two days of constant rain just before it got here.  Some kind of storm system just more or less stalled out and kept on raining.   There is a lot of flooding around and some trees down.  We didn't get high winds, but the ground was so saturated before Helene got here that the trees fell from the wind anyway.    The New River is at 19 feet right now and will be flooding for days, then sending the water up through WVa and then to the Ohio River.  
 We are fine.  We kept the barn ditches open and the winds didn't blow into the barn, so the barn didn't get flooded.  The horses are tired of being in the barn so much.   After taking care of the barn early this morning, we had a nice lazy day in the house listening to the rain on the roof.   We didn't get the tornadoes that counties east of us did, thank goodness.  Just lots of rain.

Okay. I'm officially tired of cloudy days. I guess I'd better shut up. All those thousands of people in the south are officially tired of not having a house or all the things that go with it - like water, power, phone.......

ELLEN:
 I could use some sunshine, too.  We got some glimpses off and on.   While we personally didn't get any damage from the hurricane, the  news of how the state west of us gets worse and worse.  Our old county,  Grayson,  has lost a bunch of houses and roads.  Just washed away.   I wonder how our old house did.  It wouldn't have gotten flooded, but it is among trees that could have fallen on it.   When hurricane Hugo went thru there, a large tree fell parallel to our house,  about 2 feet from the side.   My good friend, M, lives in the higher elevations of the county and the roads near them are washed out and no power.  The beautiful road we used to drive on between Konnarock and Damascus is totally obliterated.  The railroad trestles  turned walking/riding paths that are on the Virginia Creeper Trail are off their foundations.   It is sad.  It will take years to clean up the mess.

Our local lake,  Claytor Lake,  has a 10 acre debris field floating on it with more coming down New River every day from North Carolina.  I have no idea how they will clean that up.  The counties around us have a water boiling notice out, so far our county's water system seems to be okay.  I hope it stays that way. The river is about 2 miles from us as the crow flies.  Here is a photo of Claytor Lake, about 10 miles from us.

That is a very telling photo. The damage that caused it, and the damage to the lake. With everything else that needs to be cleaned up and repaired, the lake is probably at the bottom of the list. It's going to take a very long time.

My neighbors go to Florida for the winter. One of the places they stay is Perry. There is a restaurant, named "Roy's", they like to go to that isn't there anymore. The owner is going to do her best to rebuild. In the meantime, she will try to operate the business out of a food truck that was donated. I hope it works.

ELLEN:
 We have gone to Cedar Key several times,  a really nice little village on the Gulf.  It has been greatly destroyed.  It's very sad.  I hope they can rebuild, but it won't be the ol'timey looking place it was.


Time to change the calendar.  October has arrived.

Goto:

https://horsefriends.forumotion.com/t160-october-2024#15732