Back Home and Assessing Damage

After twelve days and nights of being absent from the Small-Hold Mrs. PP was allowed to come home today. All I can say is it's going to be a long haul to get everything set aright around here that's for sure.

The house is a complete wreck. I have never in my life seen the ground so saturated with water as it is now. I have certainly seen worse flooding around here in the past though. On my final few trips into the hospital I had to take my truck as the roads were washed out in a couple of places. Yesterday I ended up having to drive through about 6 inches or so of water flowing over a county highway were a swollen creek had over flowed it's culvert. I could still see the yellow lines under the water so I wasn't too worried about being washed away. One of the gravel roads had washed out so bad the ditch across it was about as deep as the tires on the truck.

A good indication of how much rain we got can be seen in my garden watering tub above. It's just a standard 30 gallon tub I use for hand watering the garden when the plants are still seeds or small. The tub was empty when Mrs. PP went into the hospital so all that water is from rain over the last week.

We got limbs down everywhere that I will have to collect up before I mow again which needs to be started tomorrow if at all possible.

The Buckwheat field now looks like this with standing water over most of it and the Buckwheat itself is now pretty much all killed out except for a section on the high spot in the middle. Even that section has become stunted and wilted now so the weeds are once again pushing above the Buckwheat.

Most of the Pumpkins and Cucumbers look like this poor wilted specimen above too. Most of the raised beds will more than likely be a complete write off this year as well since I am not going to have the time to weed em and it will be a few weeks before the Mrs. can do much either.

I spent the first hour after we got home this afternoon just figuring out her pill schedule as a matter of fact. Since the fence project got delayed, mostly by the rain honestly, I have had to start feeding hay to the flock now as there is not enough forage left in the pastures I have fenced in so far. Hoof problems are starting to crop up more and more often. I suspect worms will be next although I had been worming pretty regularly up until the hospital trip. The barn is flooded on the East side and the fly plague has returned again.

On the bright side the rains are now being predicted to stop tonight and be dry for a few days. Of course that brings with it the 90 degree plus heat. Gonna be smellin awfully yummy around here for the next couple of weeks I imagine.

I haven't even looked at the hives yet. I can't even get to the ones in the orchard down the road or in the back of the pasture anyway unless I walk down there. As long as the bees have been trapped inside the hives by the rain I doubt there is much honey left either.

I did find one pleasant surprise though. My compost bin has sprouted up a volunteer Potato plant. I guess the rain has compacted the semi-composted stuff on top enough to make it's own viable dirt. Compost Potatoes now there is something I had never contemplated.

The amount of work I am going to have to do to get back to where we were is looking pretty depressing about now. All this rain may not be as bad as a drought but for the short term it is much more destructive let me tell ya.

I should be able to start answering comments once again now. I thank every one for the prayers, well wishes and get well cards. They were much appreciated.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!!!!