I’m happy to report that we fared better than the poor people in Galveston. At one point our house was entirely surrounded by water, some of it rushing quite fiercely. But we weathered the weather, and soon we’ll be able to search our back acres for the play equipment that was swept away in the rush.
Wife and I waded out into cold water up to our waists to save the trampoline, which was an adventure in and of itself. We dragged it and a bunch of other things inside a fence behind our barn, and then wrestled the two gates closed, and let it all swirl around in there the rest of the night, praying the water wouldn’t take the fence down.
At one point I went behind our house, hammered a stake into the mud, and tied a rag at water level, just to keep an eye on the water’s rise. Soon the water covered most of the stake, and was rising against our retaining wall. So I parked my truck on the other side of the gathering moat, in case we needed to make a getaway. And did I mention the snakes? Everywhere.
The upside is that my pond, the one in which I killed all the fish, has been de-algaefied and restocked. So now I have a fresh new stock of victims to slowly murder by mismanaging the ecosystem. Our lazy, do-nothing dog, meanwhile, thought this was the best thing that ever happened. She frolicked in the rain and wallowed around in the mud and generally had herself a grand old time. I didn’t think it was possible for her to smell worse, but indeed it was.
All in all we faired pretty well, and learned a thing or two about what needs to be chained down in the future. And the thing is, so long as Wife and babies never float away, I’ll always be rich. The church says you’re supposed to store up your treasures in heaven, but almost all of my treasure is right here.
