—rain measured in hands.At least that’s the promise. Central California is going to be spending a week getting used to what it was like when I was a kid, with storms that really dump some precipitation. I remember one time while I was in high school when the school bus drove over a bridge on the Friant Kern Canal and we were amazed to see whole sections of the concrete walls simply gone, washed away! And that was in the environment of a valve-controlled canal! I rode with my dad down Highway 41 from our place on Deadwood Mountain above Oakhurst, and the roadway was obscured by runoff from the mountain, at least an inch deep and very brown with mud.
When Karla and I moved here in 1981, we had a season-total rainfall of 60", 152 cm. The following year it rained 54", 137 cm. So naturally we built a ten-foot-diameter (three meter) overshot waterwheel to capture all that potential energy. Stupid us. It hasn’t rained like that since.
As I write, I hear a drip-drip-drip. The house has a very complex roof, which is prone to leaking when the winds get really crazy. Yesterday’s rain revealed a new leak, one that contains water that has filtered through the local pack rat’s house on the roof under one of the eaves. Unfortunately, it ran through the rat’s bathroom and dripped into one of our bathrooms, leaving a lot of brownish-reddish-tinged splashes on our shelves of toiletries.
Gives a whole new meaning to “toiletries.”
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If it's any consolation we had rainwater dripping out of a light fixture into the kitchen today, and the repair and cleanup of that mess led to the discovery that a pipe behind the shower has been leaking for a long time, and there's a big mass of mold growing in the wall between shower and pantry.
That could explain my uncontrollable sneezing fits whenever I take a shower.
Tomorrow Luke is going to brave the flash flooding and slick roads to go to town and get some plumbing parts! And bleach.
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