Day 5-Rain

It rained today in El Paso.  I usually LOVE the rain.  Most places I have lived, they are equipped to handle the rain.  They have things like gutters on houses and curbs that actually hold water.  Since it rarely rains in El Paso,  nobody has gutters on their house and the water just runs down the street like a river.  ANYWAY, last time it rained, our roof leaked.  Of course that happened 4 days before Mike left.   I am very, VERY happy to report that the repairs that we did seemed to do the trick and that there was no leak!  Yahoo!!

My main focus tonight was all of the standing water around my house.  The rain started out pretty slow and I doubted if it was really even going to amount to anything.  It has been so hot that the droplets seemed to sizzle as they hit the ground.  But then, there was a flash of lightening immediately followed by deafening earth-shaking clap of thunder.  I looked up and I could see the rain drops coming.

I wish I had pictures to show you.  Let me paint you a picture, just so you can imagine it.  Imagine me fully dressed.  But not my usual clothes.  We had just gotten home from Cub Scouts.  So, there I was in my Den Leader Uniform, khaki shirt with patches, brown pants and tennis shoes.  Now imagine what I would look like if I just jumped into a pool.  Now imagine me trying to sweep gallons of water, UP a slight slope, away from my house and toward the street.  Yeah, I was the crazy lady.  Then it started to hail.

Last year, we were able to use a few garden hoses and syphon the water out, too.  Again, I know I looked like a crazy lady, out there in the pouring rain trying to get the syphon to work.  I couldn't.
Stupid Army deployment.  Mike got it to work last time.  After saying a quick prayer asking for help or for the rain to stop or whatever, I thought I would try our Shop Vac.  After all, it is a WET/ DRY vac.  NO, I wasn't going to try to vacuum up all of the water--that really would have been crazy.  I thought I might be able to use it to get the syphon started.  After I checked and re-checked that I wouldn't electrocute myself, I plugged in the vacuum and carried it over to the end of the green garden hose.  I stuffed the garden hose inside of the big black vacuum hose and turned it on.  Within a few seconds the vacuum started to "cough".  I pulled the garden hose out and water came gushing out!  Success!!!

I am glad it is dark outside, so my neighbors can't see the multiple garden hoses that are stretched from my backyard, across the front yard to the curb.  I am still trying to decide if I am going to roll up the hoses tomorrow or if I am going to leave them out for a few days until I am sure the rain has stopped.