Too Much!

          Too much!

          It's just too much!

          Too much has happened this week!

          First, and oh-so-heavy on my heart, is the passing of my cousin, Justin.

          Growing up, being so far away from our cousins, we didn't really have much of a relationship with any of them. But then Mike and I moved back to Pennsylvania and Justin became more than just my cousin, he became our friend.

          Justin always thought of us whenever he went for fresh produce. He'd always bring a little for Mike and me to enjoy. The last time I saw Justin, was two weeks before his death. He brought us some sweet corn.

          Sitting on the table, all but ready to be mailed, was a thank you card to Justin for said sweet corn. Sigh. I feel bad that I hadn't been more prompt in getting it to him because now it's too late.

          Justin's 'official' date of death is Tuesday, August the 14th. I'd texted Justin less than a week before that.

          "I've made some cinnamon bread I'd like to share with you. Can you stop by and pick up a mini loaf?" I asked. I'd found this easy and delicious recipe and I just love, love, love this bread!

          "Can I stop over Friday?" he asked.

          Oh my gosh! Until this very moment, until I went back and actually looked at our texts to each other, I'd thought Justin was supposed to stop by on Saturday!

          Like I said, too much has been going on this week.

          "Yep. I'll freeze it for you," I told him.

          "Thanks."

          "Yep," I repeated by way of saying he was welcome. Then I added what was in my heart. "I sure do miss you!"

          Justin didn't stop on Friday. It wasn't like him to not show up or text me. I thought he just got busy and he'd stop the next morning. When Saturday came and went, I thought he'd come the next morning. Then it was Monday and I thought, Justin's going to be at work and he'll remember he forgot to stop at my house. Then he'll text me.

          But he didn't and now I know he couldn't.

          Every time I open my freezer and see that loaf of cinnamon bread sitting there, it makes me sad.

          I'm going to compose this letter blog around my pictures and the order they were taken. I don't always do that, but this week it will make it easier for me.

          Our little wren has hatched a second brood on my patio. We've had the door open, letting the fresh air into the house, and I'd hear her squawking up a storm. I'd go to see what the problem is — or was, and it would be one of the cats sitting there and she couldn't get in to feed her babies. I'd pick up whichever cat it was and toss them in the house for a while.

          And then the rains came again.

          And I lost track of her. Yesterday I didn't see her or hear the babies. I don't know if the babies have fledged, or mama got killed and the babies are dead. I'll open the birdhouse up in a few days and check it out.

          I've gotten some colorful sunset photos. These two are from two weeks ago and I didn't have room to include them in my last letter blog.

          These two are from this week.

            I was out back and saw the sky overtop the mill. 

            I walked around to the side and shot this second photo. 

           One thing about rain and clouds, you sure do get some fabulous sunsets!

            And the rain! So much rain! Our pond is leaving his bed!

          The ditches and culverts can't handle anymore and Robinson Road flooded.

          "Can we drive through it?" I asked Mike as I took a picture, the road flooded as far as I could see.

          "We better not," he said.

          "Why? The cars are driving through it."

          "Yeah, but the golf cart is a lot lighter and it wouldn't take as much to sweep us over the bank."

          I didn't want to go over the bank in the golf cart! We turned around and headed down to visit our neighbors and friends, the Kipps.

           The creek was coming up so Lamar moved the Crane to higher ground.

          And it rained some more! Our little creek that is normally so shallow you could walk across without getting wet much beyond your ankles was now an angry mass of mud and rocks and trees!

          Mike and I were at the lower bridge when I hear creaking and groaning and a tree gave way, crashing into the trees on the opposite bank.

            A few minutes later the creaking and groaning started again and another tree fell. The sound of massive trees falling hits you right in your solar plexus, kind like the same way it does when you hear the awesome rumble of thunder or the power of fighter jets flying low overhead.

          After checking out the creek, Mike and I got busy on a project we've needed to do for a while. The cats are climbing the shelves in the garage and getting into the insulation on top of my utility room.

          "What if they're messing up there?" Mike asked.

          "I don't know," I told him. "I guess they could be. But more importantly, insulation is bad for them. It gets in their eyes and nose and mouth."

          The first night the wire was up, they knocked some things down trying to find a way on top. This morning when I went out to feed them, I heard one of the cats jump down, but he could have just been sitting on one of the shelves.

          And it rained, and it poured some more! There's no place for the water to go in our already saturated ground. When it stopped later that afternoon, Mike and I went to check the creek. The water was over the Kipps' driveway. Lamar had the foresight to move his car up to the neighbors where it would be high and dry.

          "In the 43 years that we've lived here we've never had water up into the driveway before," Lamar told us.

          Our little creek was slapping over the deck of the bridge, depositing a collection of sticks and twigs, beer and soda bottles.

          "I wonder what's happening down at the lower bridge?"

          "I don't know. Do you want to go see?" Mike asked.

          And I did.

          Our county guys were down there inspecting the bridge. The water was washing behind the abutment and they decided to close it. They dropped a tree across the road on both ends of the bridge. I wondered if they were out of road closed signs.

          The water was high! I took a lot of pictures but they just don't convey the violent rushing and crashing of the water!

          We went back up to the top bridge.

          Then we'd gotten back on the golf cart, headed out to check Jim Leaser's property when a little butterfly landed on Ginger's face. She hated that! She kept trying to shake it off and I kept trying to make her hold still so I could get a picture of it. Finally, she used her paw and swiped it away.

          Jim Leaser died years ago, but Mike and I still think of it as Jim's. His son owns it now and the place has been empty for a while. I don't think he hardly ever comes up anymore, maybe it's too painful for him; all the memories.

          The driveway down to Jim's was impassable. I bet there was a good four-foot deep gully trenched out right down the middle by the water. Mike waited on the cart while I walked down. When I could see the shed was dry, I figured the house, being a little higher up, would be dry too,

...and turned around and went back to where Mike and Ginger waited.

          We could have gone home for a while but instead, we just kept cycling between the two bridges, waiting to see just how high the water would get.

          Mike and I were visiting with Lamar when a neighbor and friend of mine shows up to check out the bridge. "I bet I know what's going to be in your blog this week!" Jenny exclaimed.

          "You bet!" I said and raised my camera to snap a picture of this beautiful lady.

          "Jenny!" Mike called to get her to turn around, and she did. "Guess what else is going to be in Peg's blog," and I snapped a picture of her as she laughed.

          I also got a couple of nice shots of two of Jen's daughters. The rain started to fall again but it didn't dampen Alison's determination to get a video of the raging waters. I like this shot of her but it doesn't show her pretty face. 

But this one does!

          And this is Savannah as she stood in the rain.

          Another shot of Jenny as she tried to shield her glasses from the rain.

          After a bite of supper late that afternoon, Mike and I again made the rounds between the two bridges. The water was starting to recede and it left a tree stuck on the upper bridge.

    At the lower bridge, the fallen trees were replaced with bridge closed signs.

          It rained again in the night.

          The next morning Mike and I went out to check things out. A pile of gravel sat smack in the middle of the road, blocking access to the lower bridge.

          "I bet they were driving around the signs," Mike said.

          The county guys showed up while we were there and Mike got to visiting with them while I took pictures and did my own thing.

          On the iron bridge, I spied a green grasshopper. Or so I thought! A quick Google search tells me this is a boy Meadow Katydid, not a grasshopper at all. And if he were a she, you'd see the ovipositor, a long slender tube extending behind her body and used to lay her eggs.

          Then a spider web captures my attention. I guess I was a little tired of angry water pictures for the moment.

          After I took all the pictures I wanted, I waited on the golf cart for Mike.

          "The county didn't move the trees," he said when he came back.

          "They didn't?"

          "Nope. A good Samaritan did. Then people were moving the bridge closed signs and driving across anyway so that's why they dumped the gravel there. Now he's worried someone will steal his gravel."

          We watched the local news reporting all the flooding and damage all around our area. Several little towns were hit really hard. There was a lot of damage in Monroeton and New Albany. In New Albany, their library sat next to a creek and was flooded two weeks ago. Last week the library, a two-story structure, gave up its bid to withstand the floodwaters and washed right out into the middle of the road, the bottom floor completely destroyed. The residents of the second-floor apartment were rescued safely. (I didn't take this picture, I got it from the internet.)

          "Wanna go check out Monroeton and New Albany?" Mike asked.

          I wanted to, but I was afraid. "Do you think we can?"

          "Sure. Let's go."

          We went from here to Wysox and had lunch at McDonald's. On the way over, we could see evidence of gully washers. Sometimes washing away hillsides, but always leaving behind rocks and mud. They were using snowplows to clear the roads.

          We didn't have any trouble until we hit road closed signs in Monroeton. While we were sitting there deciding what to do, a semi truck with a trailer goes around the sign.

          "I'm following him," Mike says, puts the Jeep in gear and goes around the road closed signs too. "If he can make it, so can I."

          I'm married to a bad boy! A real rebel!

          We saw much of the same stuff as the TV news was reporting.

          Driving down Route 220 toward Dushore, the creeks and rivers were often visible beside the road.

          Once, when I was little, I asked my mom why the roads always seem to follow the creeks.

          "Because the roads were built on old Indian paths and the Indians followed the creeks," she told me and I never forgot (although I bet she's forgotten she told me that.)

          All along the way, you could see where the floods were, where the vegetation is laid flat, trees toppled, rocks and hill sides laying in the road.

  

           People lost homes.

          And other buildings.

          The road almost completely destroyed in some places.

          We made it to New Albany.

          "I bet they used a dozer to push it out of the road," Mike said of the library.
          We went a little ways out of town, then turned around and came back. 

          "Why did you come back?" you wonder.

          We'd passed the road to take us home so we had to go back.

           On this road was more heartache.

          The asters are blooming.

          This is a Polygonia Interrogationis Butterfly, but it's easier to call him a Question Mark Butterfly. I don't know why that's his name but it is.

          His wings are looking a little ragged but it doesn't seem to bother them all that much, he could still fly.

          A bumble bee on Pennsylvania Smartweed.

          Common Burdock.

          Joe-Pye

          A dragonfly on a post. He let me get really close.

          A Green Stink Bug

          I had heard that the bridge on Iron Bridge road had washed away. I asked Mike to take me out to see it and... it's raining again.

          These guys are working on keeping the water where it belongs and off the road!

          Maybe there's more than one iron bridge, maybe there's more than one Iron Bridge road, but we got out there and even though the bridge was closed — it was still there.

          Instead of turning around and going back the way we came, we took another dirt road named Lone Mary Road. Here are some pics from that road.

      And the next day — it rains again. Normally I can't get close to the frogs in the pond before they take off, hop, skipping away into the water. With the rain, they don't hear me coming as quick and I've got lots of pictures of these guys sitting along the edge of my pond.

          Friday night it happened again!

          "More rain," you say.

          Nope. Not that 'happen again', although it did rain more Friday night.

          Friday night, around 6, I was on my way to exercise class and couldn't get across our little single-lane open-grate bridge.

          I parked in the middle of the road, grabbed my camera from the passenger seat, and got out. "What did you do!" I said as I shook my finger at the truck driver. Yeah. He had no answer. He just grinned at my audaciousness.

           "Don't worry, you're not the first one this has happened to, and you probably won't be the last."

          "It's happened before?" he asked.

          "Oh yeah. At least three other times this year alone!" That reminded me of Lamar Kipp's poor mailbox. I didn't see it under the truck, then I spotted it in the yard. At least this guy moved it instead of running it over. The newspaper box wasn't nearly so lucky.

          I took a few quick pictures, bid him good luck, got back in the Jeep, and took the long way around. Luckily I leave for class early enough that this detour wasn't going to make me late.

          Before I got to the church, the clouds burst open and it poured! So, so, hard! And it was still coming down hard when I got to the church. The thought of standing in this downpour to unlock the door didn't appeal to me all that much. Instead, I thought I'd sit in the car for a few minutes and see if it passes. My phone picks up the church's internet in the parking lot so I thought I'd scroll through FaceBook. Only, there was no connection. That's weird, I thought. I braved the rain, got out, and unlocked the church. Flipping on the lights, I could immediately see what the problem was. No power. I only expected one lady to be at class that night (yeah, my class is small these days but as long as I have one other woman willing to join me — I'm going!) I called Judy. She had Bluetooth, which means she could answer her phone through the cars sound system. I could hear the rain beating on her car. "The power's out. Turn around and go home," I told her.

          "Good. The roads are starting to flood again and I was getting worried," she told me.

          I locked the church up and got back in the Jeep. The rain was slowing down. Knowing the bridge would still be blocked, I drove down to our road anyway. I wanted a picture from the other side. I snapped my picture, turned around, and took the long way home.

          "Wanna go check out the semi?" I asked Mike when I got home. He got up from his recliner, put his shoes on, and out we went.

          "What are they waiting for?" I asked as we got closer and the wrecker was just sitting there not doing anything.

          "Probably waiting on a bigger wrecker, is my guess."

          And Mike was right.

          Mike visited with the semi and wrecker drivers for a while then we drove down Robinson Road looking for the bigger wrecker. "He'll have to back up the whole way," Mike told me. "He won't be able to turn around once he gets up here. But if it's the same guy as before, he'll know that."

          It was more than two hours before the bigger wrecker showed up. In the meantime, we met two of our other neighbors. Jim and his daughter Brianna were out in a four-wheeler doing what we intended to do. Making sure the wrecker driver backs up the road. Mike spent quite a while visiting with them.

          Then Dawn and her husband came to check out the semi and we spent half an hour or so visiting with them.

          Around 8:30 we could hear the wrecker coming and see his lights.

          I stood back. I stood way back, behind everyone else. I am aware, almost constantly aware, that life is fragile and can end in less time than it takes to snap your fingers. I could be well out of the way of big rigs, and swinging booms, and big hooks, and steel cables, and death can still find you in a fallen tree branch if it's your appointed hour. But I don't dwell! It's not like that at all. I just make sure I'm ready.

          While I stood under the big pines in the Kipps' front yard, I turned my camera to the raindrops hanging on the tree. All of the lights were reflected and I think this shot looks like a flock of birds.

          One wrecker driver put tension on the cable as the other driver operated the controls.

          Other people were there too, and I was surprised to see one guy brought his kids. Since the kids were told to stay back, and I was staying back of my own accord, we kept each other company.

          Looking for a different shot, and killing time until the action started, I got in front of the semi and took a shot down the side.

          Finally, they started picking up the trailer and walked it, step by step, back onto the road, the mud evident where the ICC bar had been buried.

          "Peg, what's an ICC bar?" you ask.

          I'm so glad you asked! ICC stands for Interstate Commerce Commission and they've required these bars or bumpers on semis since 1953.

          Sometimes they're called 'underride bars' because they are supposed to keep cars from underriding a semi. A phenomenon in which a car collides with the trailer and goes under it, leaving the windshield, A-pillars, and unfortunately the front-seat passengers to stop the car's momentum in an accident.

          They have one more name too. 'Mansfield bars'. This is after the actress Jane Mansfield because she was killed when she slammed into the back of a trailer.

          "Yeah, she was going 100 miles an hour," Mike tells me.

          Jane Mansfield was killed in 1967, pointing out the fact that these bars don't always do what they were designed to do, although, if she was going that fast, nothing would have saved her.

          It seemed like there was a whole lotta talking going on and not much else. I left the kids a safe distance away and went to find Mike. "What's going on?"

          "They're trying to decide if he needs to back the whole way out or if he can go across the bridge."

          "What would you do?" Mike drove semis for many, many, years, often getting into some pretty tight scrapes himself.

          "I wouldn't want to back down this road at night. Did you see the edge of the road there at the top of the hill where it turns to go down to the hunter's cabin? It's starting to flake off. If he gets too far over he's libel to end up down in the ravine."

          "But isn't he over the weight limit?"

          "Yeah, but he isn't going to be on the bridge all at one time. The tractor will be almost off before the trailer gets on."

          The wrecker drivers (yeah, we had two wreckers here) and the truck driver took flashlights and checked out the structure of the bridge.

          I walked out on the bridge and when I looked back at the truck and trailer I could see the way he was sitting, he still wouldn't make it across the bridge, and I said as much to one of the wrecker drivers.

          "We'll have him move up then we'll move the trailer over until we get him lined up."

          And that's what they were doing when the man operating the controls stopped and yelled, "THAT'S IT! WE'RE DONE!" Then he went on to explain. "The bumpers ripping off."

          I'd heard the screeching of metal on metal but to me, it sounded like all the other times it cried when they were moving it. It wasn't a quiet operation as the trailer protested being lifted.

          "I'd never seen that happen before," Mike told me.

          They rigged a chain and managed to finish the job.

          "Boy, you sure have created a lot of excitement on this quiet little road," I told Travis, the semi driver. "How did you end up here anyway?"

          "220's closed and my GPS routed me this way."

          Travis has been with this trucking company for five years and has never had a problem before. I know this is going to cost his company a bunch of money and I said a little prayer that he wouldn't lose his job over this.

          And that wasn't the only prayer I said that night either! I asked God to send His angels to hold the bridge up so Travis could make it across safe and sound.

          He did, and he did.

          It was almost 11 until we got home

          Let's call this one done!