Rain, Rain, Rain

Rain...rain...rain...

We've had lots of rain, tornado warnings, and wind yesterday, last night, today, and even the present.  We are currently in a tornado warning until 8:45.  It's raining now with thunder all around us.  Seems to be multiple tornado warnings in our area.  In the meantime, I'll attempt to write a bit of what's been going on around here. I just see on the TV that the worst of this storm will come through our area at 8:25, and already I can clearly hear the wind and thunder around us.  Rain is beating on the house so might have to put this baby to rest for a bit and finish this entry later this evening. 

Yipes, it's here -- and it's definitely a noisy one.

I'm back and we survived. 

We both headed downstairs to hole up in the den which we thought would be the safest area of the house.  Sweetz popped some popcorn and we munched on that and sipped tea while we watched the local channels as they showed the doppler weather screens.  And sure enough at  8:45, right at the predicted time, the storm moved out of our area.  There are lingering rain storms but they are the normal kind, nothing frightening.  They predicted our area would get 3" of rain tonight and add those to the accumulation yesterday and earlier today, we'll be suffering from flooding.  Thankfully, our home is located on a high hill so the water runs downhill to several neighborhood lakes. 

Now, back to the normal stuff:  

We took the RV in Tues for a transmission fluid change, got it back today.  We'd still like to get out for a short trip but seems our schedule and weather haven't provided sufficient opportunities.  Sweetz wants to put a coat of roofing protection on too.  Then soon we'll be winterizing our house on wheels and putting the cover on.  Then we sit and wait for spring again.  Hopefully, by that time we will be moving out for an extended trip.  One can only hope and plan.  Oh, my, don't like that "hope" word, must see if I can find a synonym. Ahh, how about "trust".  Yeah, we will trust and plan.  That sounds better. 

I'll see if I can upload a few pictures from the past few days. 

Mom and I ate at a new restaurant in a beautiful home built with a view worth a million bucks.  Thankfully, our lunch didn't require me to dig into my saving$.  The family built a new home on the property and are using the old homestead as a restaurant.  We ate in the Florida Room (maybe I should call it the North Carolina room) overlooking the rolling hills and trees dressed in their gorgeous fall colors.

Here's the front porch of the home/turned restaurant.

And this is a shot of our area's rolling hills and fall colors. 

Yes, it really is a monarch butterfly.  I didn't believe it - thought it was a viceroy (a look alike monarch) but sure enough this is a male monarch enjoying his meal of pineapple sage blooms.  He was a bit wary of me so it was difficult to get a good picture.  We checked the internet to verify he was a monarch. And a beauty for sure.  A pure beauty!

A snippet of our back yard.  We seem to be experiencing subdued fall colors this year.

A slice of our front yard.  Dogwood turning red and poplars wrapped in yellow.

Our garden is slowing down to an occasional reward.  One bell pepper and one red banana pepper was picked today.  These are two black walnuts the squirrels must have left on the garden path. Sure don't want them sprouting in the raised beds, plus we learned the hard way that black walnut trees don't play nice with tomatoes.