40 mile difference

Last Friday I took the afternoon off from work so I could drive to a moderate-sized city about 40 miles away to a) take my van to the dealer for some work, b) shop at stores other than The Wal-Marts, c) eat lunch out, d) get errands done that I've been meaning to do for about a year, e) go to the nail salon for some girl time.

I had a great day, although I did still end up at a Wal-Mart.  But at least it was a full-blown, regular-sized Wal-Mart... versus the one in my town of 1600 people that is tiny and notably missing an auto center and a bakery.

The one thing that pulls at my heart-strings about moving to the very rural country is my choice of shopping establishments.  But, that's for another post.

While I was hopping from errand to errand, the sky started to look dark and ominous.  I briefly thought, "Oh great, another storm!".  But since we've been having storms for the past 3 months straight, I wasn't too concerned.  It rained for a bit and then cleared up.  Yay... more shopping!

Around 7pm, I started my drive home and arrived around 8pm.  As I pulled off of the main road onto our gravel road, I could tell the weather down this'a'way had been more than the few drops I saw earlier.  Leaves and small limbs littered the road.  As I pulled down our driveway, the tan truck had so many leaves stuck to it, it would have made a perfect camouflaged vehicle for hunting.  As soon as I walked into the house I asked Dan, "Did it storm bad down here?" and he proceeded to fill me in on the day's wrath, including hail, which we hardly ever get.

I quickly forgot about this until I was downloading pictures today and discovered Dan had taken a few pictures of the hail.

It must have been flowing over the gutters because the majority of it is around the perimeter of the house and downspouts.

If I didn't know any better, I would have guessed this photo was of snow taken in January.  Well, except for the obvious hail you can see on the porch.



And the moral of this story?  I'm tired of rain.  I'm tired of storms and wind.  I'm tired of mud.  I'm tired of not being able to put a garden in because the ground is a sloppy mess.  I'm tired of taking care of animals in drizzle morning, noon and night.  I'm tired of everything being wet.

I'm sure if we have a drought later in the summer, I'll be tired of that too, but for now, a drought looks more like the Promised Land.