Blessed Rain

I've been a little bitter about our incredibly searing, scorching, never-ending, ceaselessly hot summer.

You may have noticed.

I feel justified, though.  Texas has just had the hottest summer on record- ever- anywhere in the U.S.  More than 50 days over 100 degrees.  And not only that, we're in the middle of a severe drought so everything has been unbelievably, dangerously hot and dry.

Recently, this culminated in a terrible fire in central Texas, which burned more than 1,500 homes.

Every day, whenever we drove anywhere, there was smoke rising in the sky.  It signaled fires in fields, canyons, and on roadsides.  It signaled evacuations and fear. 

We prayed for rain and safety for people, animals, and homes.  We prayed no fires would find their way through the limestone hills near our home.  We live among scrub brush and cedar, the very fuel fire craves.   

We feel blessed that none of this (so far) has affected Cabbage Ranch.  We did, however, have a scare at Sam's barn when a grass fire next door threatened to force evacuation of that big boarding facility.  I was at the barn until after the all-clear and got home that night after 11:00pm, my head filled with the fragility of our safety. 

Cabbage and I stayed up late making evacuation plans for Cabbage Ranch.  First, we double-checked our insurance.  Then we moved a few more things into the fireproof safe and parked the horse trailer in the middle of the driveway where it's ready to hook up at a moment's notice.  We know either of us can load our horses, even under duress.  Almost daily, we've had calls from worried neighbors as we all fear for the safety of our homes and animals.

Things are looking up, though.  We actually had rain the other day! 

I had to run around taking pictures of it.  It has seriously been months and months since we had anything close to this!

Finally I couldn't stand it and I ran outside and stood in the driving rain to watch it run down our driveway and toward the barn. 

I didn't even care that it meant I'd be dealing with days of muddy floors and boot tracks on carpeting.  There were more calls from neighbors- this time, rejoicing over the rain!

That wasn't all, though.  The next day, this gorgeous sky rolled up.

It developed into gusts of wind, flashes of light, and then these clouds...  Which had us getting out the weather radio...

And then we lost power, so we sat inside and cuddled Beep and listened to the rain.  We celebrated with Annie's cookies and beer.

The storms weren't enough to decrease our fire danger, but we're still grateful for every drop.  In the middle of a drought, there's nothing like blessed rain.