No Rain Today!

It hasn’t rained for almost 24 hours, which makes me feel today as if I am on a different planet from the one I’ve been marooned on for the past 4-5 days. The basement, while not completely dry, is at least no longer deep in water. So my life is starting to feel a little more normal again.

The local streams and rivers are a different story. The water under the bridge I cross to come to work is nearly up to the bottom of the bridge. Debris that can no longer pass under it is banging up against the side. The Susquehanna River was within a few feet of flood stage this morning when I crossed it. This normally sleepy river is a raging torrent right now, filled with trees and other flotsam.

I saw a coyote yesterday evening—the first I’ve seen all year. It bolted across the road in front of me, visible only in the moment it was in the open space of the road.

Dog and Baby Dog seemed surprised this morning at the absence of rain and didn’t know what to do with themselves without it. Baby Dog was scared by a rock in the middle of the driveway. She acted as though it was a Big Hairy Monster and barked at it. I thought, at first, that she must be looking at something other than this fist-sized rock, at something I couldn’t see. It was a mild-mannered looking rock that just happened to be standing up on an edge. When I kicked it over, she pretended she hadn’t been scared at all and tried to play with it, even picking it up in her mouth and carrying it around for a while.