December Mud

It has been so very dry. There is powder dust everywhere instead of dirt.  Today we gratefully got rain.  Thunder, lightening and pouring rain.  I stood at the church door and watched; water was running down the gutters and across the parking lot towards the field.  As I was driving back to the farm after church, I drove through off and on heavy rain and there was water standing in the fields and ditches.  At Rexford I called home to ask how muddy it was and to notify Dad that I was on my way in case I got stuck and needed to be picked up.  Dad said they hardly had enough moisture to get the sidewalk damp.  Funny, I was driving in rain.  Ok, I'll head down the dirt (mud) road. 

As I turned to the county road, it looked muddy to me.  Oh, boy, was it muddy!  You can see that I was not exactly going straight down the road.

I do not like driving mud roads but I can do it.  I take it slow and slide all over the road but seem to stay out of the ditch.  There were times that my steering wheel was upside down or turned 3/4 around.  At one time I did not know which way was straight and had to just let go to allow it to return to normal. My Dodge Journey has the stability traction control feature that shuts down the engine when it senses the tires slipping.  I was basically sitting in the middle of the road and going nowhere.  I pressed the over ride button to shut it off and to let the car skid some.  I saw the anti-skid light come on once even after turning it off.  I made it home and did not get stuck. Yea Rose!!

I went down to Mom & Dad's and it really poured rain for a while.  I showed Dad the pictures I took as I was driving.  I think I was going slow enough and only need one hand to 'loosy goosy' steer the car that I was safe enough to take the pictures. 

I had .80 inch of rain in my rain gauge and it was leaning sideways so that most likely is not accurate but at least I have proof it rained a lot (just in case driving in it did not let me know).  I think Dad must have been sleeping in his chair and not realizing how  much it had really rained.  Snow is to come tonight.

Rose