Bit of rain... and a twister

Thank you all for your kind thoughts and emails about my Uncle Russell.  If you were looking for the post I wrote about his passing it is here: My Uncle Russell

We have had a touch of rain over the last week or so. I can hear you saying... umm.. Rebecca.. it is Oregon. It rains there.  Yes yes... I know.  I lived in the Pacific Northwest several years ago... in the great state of Washington and absolutely loved it... there is a reason it is so green and lush.  David was living in Oregon around the same time I was in Washington... so he is familiar with the weather patterns in this part of the country as well but the rain we received recently was a touch more than we expected.  

 There was even the added bonus of being in the path of a tornado.
Of course being in the path of a tornado that peters out is soooo much better than being 'touched' by one.

We are not in Kansas anymore Toto.... we are in Oregon. Tornadoes are not real common in the Pacific Northwest so it was pretty big news around 'these here parts'.  David and I had closed the course during the worst part of the surge in water and were trying to loosen tree trunks that were lodged under the covered bridge.  David had climbed over the railing and was standing on one of the support pilings chainsaw in hand 

and I was leaning over with my hand on his collar so he would not fall in. That picture there is two trees...  and they look small in this photo... the one is underwater and then the other has the roots showing.  Here is a different angle.  They were not small:

Another view of the trees hung up on the covered bridge

David was sawing away at parts of these trees and I thought cold, wet, wood chips were hitting me...  it was hail.  Not that unusual except that is was the hail that preceded the tornado that touched down to the south of us. We had no idea until we came back to the clubhouse to defrost and turned the TV on to see the tornado warning... and that we appeared to be in it's path.  It lost steam though and passed through our area without any problems although it demolished some buildings where it touched down in nearby Aulmsville.

The creek that runs through the course that seems to swell and at times overflow like over-filled bathtub with every drop that falls from the sky... or every Russian golfer I catch wading through it.  This overflow seems to occur semi-sorta-frequently despite previous assurances that the creek floods .... "oh maybe once every 20 years or so."  Well, this must be an off year because we have seen the river crest it's banks twice in the past 7 months. 

BEFORE:

AFTER:

That photo above is normally a grassy area and cart paths... under all that water. This shot below is of David and Delta and her stick (sigh) walking past a small golf cart bridge on the way to the big covered bridge. That railing is the TOP of the railing and is normally waist high.

One thing about the speed of this particular creek's rising and subsiding is that the very next morning, after a break in the clouds and a couple hours between rain showers the creek is back within it's banks and golfers are able to make their way around the course relatively easier... and much dryer.  David got some help from Adam and they hooked the trees up to tractors and managed to work them loose so they could flow under the bridge. 

Because of the weather and because it gets dark so quickly it has been slow here at the course.   We planned for it and after the wild and crazy summer it is nice to catch our breath.  Christmas is coming and we have been getting ready for that.  

I put up some decorations, baked some banana bread, put Duke Ellington's Nutcracker Overture on the stereo, and got out the world famous and rather well traveled Christmas Angel and placed it on the top of my faux Charlie Brown tree.

This will be a fun Christmas time this year as there is a baby in the family...  well, he was here last year for Christmas but in the semi-floppy needing to be carried baby mode.

This year Donovan is running around like a madman getting into absolutely everything and he is going to get a big kick out of this Christmas business for the next few years.

He is going to just dig on that huge tree at Great Granny and Great Poppa's house!  Little ones make it fun... Christmas is best seen through a child's eyes and we are going to soak it up.