After yesterdays news report on the tornado just up the road and then my Dad phoning last night to see if we were still here or been blown to kingdom come, I dreamed of tornados and water spouts last night. I woke up as tight as a wet knot and was only able to relax when I sat up in bed.
Dad said more weird weather and tornados were expected today so I have been keeping a wary eye on the sky all day.
Just after lunch a huge black mass of cloud had gathered over towards the west so I hurried with my jobs so I wouldn't get caught out in it.
As I finished, I noticed the wind had changed direction and was blowing the really dark clouds back the way they came.... or so it seemed. Towards the north west the clouds were blowing east and towards the east they were blowing west...... then the lightning and thunder arrived briefly. Pilot shot under the desk in the office and stayed there for an hour.
Things settled down a bit until around 6:30. Then more lightning and thunder and then rain and more rain. Sometimes it's just a light rain and other times it's pelting down so hard you can barely hear yourself think.
Pilot has spent the evening under the desk, big frilly blouse.
It seems by the weather report on TV, we are stuck between two lows, one to the west and one to the east and we are smack bang in the middle (we, being most of NZ, particularly the North Island).
I've finished the plastering and put the skirting board and scotia board back and have ripped up more carpet but every muscle in my legs and bum hurt today so I think I'll have a go at the carpet every other day or so. The foam backing has turned to powder which is stuck to the particle board underneath and I have to scrape it off with a paint scraper.. it comes off quite easily but the blade is only small. I stop every time I have cleared an arms length of floor to sweep up the bits of disintergrated foam and dust.
I've been cutting big bits of carpet and pulling it up but if I try this method around the ranch sliders, it just pulls away in my hands, it's so sun rotted.
We can't do anything with the carpet in the garage until the weather clears up and we can spread it out on the lawn. I dread to think what the rats have done to it..... I had rat bait down but the beggars ate into the rat bait container and pinched around 180 - 190 baits, left the instruction leaflet but not a bait in sight. I hope the rotten things pinched the baits off which ever rat stole them. I've only found one dead rat. I have noticed that the holes that were being constantly dug into the chook house have stopped appearing. I filled them in and they haven't been re-dug for ages.
The carpet is either fine and untouched, or rolling it out will be like the thriller scene in a Stephen King movie. Yugh!
The lawn in knee height owing to the wheel coming off the lawn mower and the battery being dead. We got the proper E clip from a mower shop and a new battery and after Kim put the new battery in (and the mower still wouldn't work) and I gave the electrical bits under the seat a vacuum to clear out the cobwebs and dead grass, the mower is now in working order but the rain has made the grass so wet it would just gum up the works.
Everything is on hold until the rain stops.
Every time a train comes through the village I reckon my heart goes into over time... is it a train or a tornado? I've never experienced a twister and I don't want to but when it's all quiet out there at night, the imagination can run riot.
I was in San Antonio when a twister ripped through a little town called Jarred.... that was scary enough and Jarred was a fair way off. Man, what a mess.... and Jarred was practically flattened. I hid in the hallway with all the doors closed, a bottle of water and some snacks, the phone? and some pillows. Why I needed a phone I didn't stop to think.. I mean the chances of communication being cut were pretty high.
Well anyway, that place was a big concrete block apartment building, this place is a wee hardie plank place with a dodgy roof and even dodgier car port roof.
Sometimes the wind is so scary I don't know whether to go all out and get all the animals inside with me or go out to the shelter and stay with them.
I doubt I'd get all 10 of them inside without anyone noticing eh eh eh....
Then there's the pigs!!! See what a panicked mind can take on board.... sublime to the ridiculous... or should that be ridiculous to the even more ridiculous!
Wanting a house like a Hobbit house makes more and more sense to me.. a house in a little hill.. insulated and won't get blown off the face of the earth! A good thick waterproof lining with straw bale construction walls and whatever the architect can come up with for the sturdy roof/ceiling...... I dunno what's out there in the world of construction.....
Buggar this, more thunder.. or something rolling and roaring away out there..... could be a big empty truck I suppose
We need a bunker!
Yep its pretty sucky alright! The thunder last night made me a bit nervous and i don't normally get bothered by things like that, hadn't actually thought about a tornado (thanks mate! ) but will be now!
I know what you mean about the carpet, i did exactly the same thing. Had to cut it into strips so i could pull it up cos its too damned hard otherwise, and yes a paint scraper is about the only thing that gets the foam off the floor, although a wide putty applicator thingy does a good job too and seemed to be a bit quicker than a tungston.
Just remember it will all be worth it in the end when you have beautiful floors (cold but pretty) are you going to sand them yourself?
The trouble with some women is that they get all excited about nothing,and then they marry him.
I know what you mean about being too wet to mow, and boy you can almost sit and watch the grass grow.
Touch wood no rain here today... Im not holding my breath though.
We're not polishing the floors, we have a house lot of carpet waiting to be laid in the garage. The particle board flooring is all shot to hell after various leaks here and there. The area in front of the hot water cupboard in the kitchen is marked and a bit swollen after the last hot water cylinder sprung a rust hole and we didn't have the money to get it replaced for a while. There is a small area just inside the ranch sliders that must have got wet at some stage in the past and has sort of flaked away and I managed to fill the area where I took the unused front door out and built the level up so we now have a sort of patched bit of floor in the corner of the room. I managed to find four square bits of flooring and two rectangle bits which have patched the hole but don't look that flash... plus the rain had got under the old front door and the particle board has puffed up a bit so where the old and the newly patched bits are aren't quite level. Once the underlay and carpet are down, you won't notice it.
Next job on the list is to replace the end beam in the car port... it's rotted through so you can see daylight through it and it was making some nasty creaky sounds last night in the wind......
I have a bit of old wall stud nailed to it and the ends of that tied to the posts that hold the car port roof up... bit of a Heath Robinson affair that has been tied up there for a few years now... it's another 'get around to it' project.
It was a drummer of a night around here eh Yakut and Devan. 2/3 rd's of our household have already gone to bed and I am on my way to the shower and the same.
I got up in the night to close the windows and curtains to block some of the light and as the power was in ''browning phase'' our microwave kept beeping as i couldn't turn the darn thing off at the powerpoint, although have a sep. switch for the oven and exhaust.
So good night all, its lights out for us and hopefully nothing more than the current heavy ish rain will occur tonight.
Was it blowing like a b*stard at your place last night? I have to keep reminding myself that the house has been there for 104 years and its not gonna blow away on me..... but then the other voices in my head say well its getting pretty old now and you've nearly finished doing it up, so it just might bugger off in the middle of the night [:0][]
The trouble with some women is that they get all excited about nothing,and then they marry him.
) but will be now!
]