Torrential!

It was a beautiful morning, cool, a breeze, sunshine. I hung sheets and towels on the line to dry before leaving with Jim to work at the other house. 

The clothesline, which was here when we bought the farm, sometimes needs shoring up.

Jim propped it several weeks ago after one post fell flat.

I think the underground end of it is slowly rotting away.

Another support was added this morning.

I suppose a real solution would be to build another clothesline.

Strangely, Jim, who has built many barns and houses large and small, has a history of cobbing together the posts for washing lines.

A group of self-sown sunflowers in the lower garden strip which we haven't planted this year.

I so wanted a leisurely morning!

Time to sit on the front porch and observe the hummingbirds whizzing around the feeder.

Time to wander about the dooryard, noting the scents and colors.

I decided on a skillet meal to fortify us for the day ahead.

I pulled an onion from the garden, added a selection of items on hand:

red and yellow peppers, mushrooms, asparagus from the garden, some ground beef--and left it to simmer while I went out again with my camera.

Several branches of the old grapevine seem to have winter-killed.

 New vines have appeared at the end posts of the arbor.

[Both the arbor and the clothesline were doubtless constructed by the late Haskell Rogers, and share similar characteristics.]

Garlic grows untended around the grape arbor.

Behind the grape arbor and beyond the clothesline are two elderberry bushes.

They are bursting with bloom and seem much taller than last season in spite of pruning in earliest spring.

The foxglove in the garden are reaching the end of their bloom. 

The one tucked in the back of the herb garden was slower to open.

It seems happy there in this rather dry corner.

These foxglove are listed as a perennial variety.  I started them as seedlings last year.

Charles Albanel has done well this year after looking feeble in previous seasons.

I came inside [reluctantly] to find that Jim had cooked eggs to eat with the stir fry.

I set about brewing tea, slicing a lemon--the basis of iced tea to carry along to the other house.

Cat litter boxes must be dealt with, the breakfast dishes washed

Jim loaded the table saw and other pieces of equipment onto the back of the truck.

He announced, 'I'm ready to leave when you are.'

I flung myself into the truck, clutching my container of tea.

At the other house we again worked indoors and out.

Jim's project was fiddly--measuring, cutting, fitting.

By the time we decided to quit about 3, dark brooding clouds were filling the sky. From the main highway we could see heavy black clouds to the west. Jim remarked that it was likely 

pounding down rain at home. 
We had turned onto Rte 80 from the crossroad we use when the wind began gusting, driving rain before it so that it was nearly impossible to see.

Sheets of rain, grey-white, billowing, bore down on us, branches flailed on either side of the tree-lined road.

 The wind and rain were so fierce that I uttered, "Dear God!" a statement that was both prayer and an exclamation of something approaching fear. Within seconds, a tree fell fully across the road, 

30-40 feet in front of us!

Jim managed to jockey the truck around [thankfully we were in old 'Snortin' Nortin' rather than the car] and drove cautiously back to a junction where we could take an alternative, longer route home. 

Headlights piercing the green darkness, windshield wipers slashing against the battering deluge of rain, Jim guided the old truck slowly along the twists and bends of a typical Kentucky back road. At times the rain came so fiercely that he kept the truck at a crawl.

Houses and barns seemed to waver in and out of the darkly shimmering landscape.

Jim muttered that a rain such as this could go over the bridge we would need to cross a half mile 

below our home. 

I said little, knowing from long experience that one does not distract the driver during a tense situation.

 The water had not come over the bridge.

As we neared home, the pounding rain diminished, the wind subsided.

We pulled into the yard, surprised to see that no tree limbs were down.

Pebbles, her coat shiny with wet, browsed unconcerned in her pasture.

One of the sheets I had pegged on the line lay like a sodden spread parachute on the ground.

Its mate, the pillowcases, the nightgowns and shirts, dragged, heavy with water, but still on the line.

I bundled them inside, soaking my clothes as I dripped my way down the basement stairs to heave the cold wet wad into the washer, punching in the spin cycle.

We went through the house turning on lights against a gloom that suggested sundown rather a mere 

4 o'clock.

I swapped my damp jeans for a dry pair, pulled on a warmer top.

A cozy sort of supper seemed the thing.

I mixed batter for pecan waffles, while Jim hauled on a waterproof jacket and foraged in the upper garden for blueberries.

Waffles with fresh berries and maple syrup, ground beef patties on the side, for me a comforting mug of tea.

Once again we have witnessed the awe-inspiring forces of nature unleashed.

Yet again we are thankful to be safe.

[The above three photos were taken an hour after the storm passed by--about 5 P.M. with the sky 

a bit lighter.]