Rain, rain and more rain...will Fay ever leave?

Its Friday afternoon...at 4 pm, it's raining very hard....we've already received close to twenty four inches of rain since Fay landed. For all the rain, our yard looks about the same as when we get a couple hours of hard rain...its flooded in the normal spots and looks about like the storm pictures I took last month. Last I saw, Fay is up around the Gainsville area, but the tail end of her broad band is still smacking all of us around on the east coast. Weather forecast is for rain through the end of next week...where is all the water to go???

Looks like the St. John's River will be flooding areas north as it carries our flood waters and the rest of the water that Fay is dropping north of us now....wild to think the river flows away from the ocean. Hopefully, Fay's rains will relieve the drought in Georgia and the Carolinas as she moves on across. She's a big storm and was spread from Melbourne south of us all the way to the South Carolina coastline last night. Never would have thought we'd still be dealing with her this long. Fay has proven to be one of our record making storms...we've gotten record rains...most of us don't see much more than thirty inches of rain for the year...here we've got thirty plus inches in just a couple of days in some areas.

Hubby and I made a run out late yesterday to help our friend who borrowed the pump...had to run down to the shop and pick up a piece for the pump...WOW!!! The main road from our house had water to the top of the canals almost all the way down to the highway....right before we get to the highway is a rural crossroad where one of the biker bars sits...there is a campground across the street and just about two miles north is the Equine center....OMG!!!...the water had spilled from the canal on the one side of the road and as I looked across the fields are flooded to where no grass or growth other than trees is visible....looks like buildings and trees sitting in the middle of a huge lake. At the crossroad where the campground sits, the water is up to the top of the benches at the picnic tables...we were in hubby's truck which is a 4x4 and pretty beefy. Our little errand was made safely, but until then, we really had no idea as to how flooded the area was. Seems our news reporters are too hung up over the beach erosion to take a look at any other area. As of this morning, our main road was closed because of the heavy flooding on the south end and the crossroad down on that end was also closed due to flooding. Even the highway was closed because of the high water....the ditches and culverts along the highway weren't far from flooding when we came through yesterday.

Even along our main road, people are having to park their vehicles away from their homes...many of the homes on the west side of our road had water from the road to within inches of their homes in some places. Loads of water damage will be dealt with for months.
One of our neighbors across from us has the pasture closest to her house flooded from the canal back. Way more water than most have ever had to deal with in this area. Even the storms of 2004 that hit us back to back didn't leave this much water.

I'll be glad to see the end of the rain myself. The chickens have been in the coop for the entire week. Their yard is under water at this time so it could be a bit before they get turned back out. Thankfully, I can get to their food and water containers without having to wade through their yard. The dogs are so bored with staying inside...because of the rain and flooded yard, they have only been outside briefly since all this started. Poor Mojo is hating life the worst, as he is the one who adores being in the yard. He woke me at 5:30 this morning whining to be let out. Didn't stay long and was ready to come back inside....everybody went for a potty run at that time and all were more than willing to head back to the dry inside. Mojo just doesn't understand why so much of this water is coming down...this is his first storm like this, he's not quite two. The older ones have been through this routine numerous times. As long as there's no thunder, they could care less...thunder and lightning sends the older two cowering, trying to see how close to 'mama' they can possibly get.

Ready to see what I can find to eat...so bored I'm ready to start cooking...but I really don't need the extra calories...already heavier than I care to be. Ah well, a fresh batch of homemade something is calling me....shall have to drag the cookbook out and see what I can find that looks yummy. Made a big pot of potato soup last night and a pan of cornbread to go with it....was pretty good...I like the cornbread myself and could make a meal from just that....we heated it up for lunch today so now I need to see what I'll be throwing together for dinner tonight....dang, we would have to have POWER...hahaha, can't get out of cooking that easy!