This has been a week of rain storms and sirens going off warning of Flash Flooding.
Monday the new siren just a block from me went off along with both my phones and the radio and the siren in my home all at once.

Highway 24 was closed, people were turned away from town. That was the day I walked to MAT and got a ride back with a family from PA that needed to get to the Cog Railway.

Yes, Flash Flooding was possible. But the creek politely stayed in its banks all through town.

My cold was just about gone on Tuesday. Still not totally over it, but so much better. Actually getting some energy back.

Tony Laidig did a webinar on taking photographs at night that was interesting. I need to learn more about my camera to do some of the settings he suggested. But looking at my Firework photo, I was happy that I had gotten some as good as I did without this webinar.

I had wanted to write an email to the person who had taken so much of my money and recently declared bankruptcy, and that just poured off my fingers last night. It was a “put me in the place of you when you came asking for help and see if you can now find a way to make an effort to pay me back some of the money I loaned you to help you back then” note, not an angry note. No response yet, but who knows if she even opens my emails any more . . . or if she really does have a conscious and will ever make good on her promises before and during the time she was bankrupting everyone.

This morning was filled with getting things done for advertising for the Art Festival, things that need printing and on the web site finalized and sent to others to handle.

I had thought on Wednesday, I would get some things done and contact my Coach to set up a time for a call. But the Art Festival, then the rain distracted me quite a bit. And my brother needed some things done quickly for his Parish Gap Band web site. New drummer and a change of wording describing the band’s music and a new gig to post. That took up a bit of time getting the header redone and other pictures that needed switching out all over the web site.

In the early afternoon, my roommate went out to weed the very overgrown garden and quite a while later, I heard the rain start.

Then it hailed. She was out sheltering under a tree, and came dashing in soaking wet.

There was a river of red mud coursing down Ruxton Avenue and hail piled up in the yard.

Then it quit and the sky lightened and it looked like it would clear up.

So I walked down to my Manitou Springs Art Council meeting at Manitou Art Center. Our wonderful President brought two pies from Gooseberry Junction on highway 115: Gooseberry and Rhubarb and we all had half a slice of each. YUM! We had some interesting conversations and a new member joined.

As the meeting got near to ending, someone said, “Is that rain.”

And a couple of us responded, “NO! That’s HAIL!” and we headed downstairs to see Hurricane style storm. A storm like many of us have never seen or only seen a few times. The water was coming down in sheets and it was hailing.

Crazy drivers were going up and down the Avenue. Very lucky that no one got stuck or had an engine die in our area. Not sure what the town looked like farther east, but on the streets on the way down and afterwards around my house there was quite a bit of red gravel that had traveled down from the hillsides.

Again the creek kindly stayed mostly in its banks, but Memorial Park was a soggy mess. I didn’t get pictures of that, as someone offered me a ride home, and I accepted. Although since the sky was clearing up, I was tempted to walk home, but I took the ride instead.

Maybe tomorrow I will walk down there and take pictures of how it looks after two heavy rainstorms. I do have to go to the shop and have a CD of photos I want to leave at City Hall for a councilwoman, so will take a walk in hopefully not so stormy weather.

 Ruxton was pretty much a mess with lots of gravel on it.

There was hail everywhere around the yard and in the garden areas.

Our garden didn’t survive the second storm as well as it had the first one.

 Hopefully the squash plants will survive, and maybe some of the other plants will come back. Sure wish I had picked some lettuce yesterday . . . And I want to see how the mint is doing. Of course, I am sure much of the catnip will survive, but I had thought of cutting some of it yesterday, but just didn’t find the energy to go into the garden and do that.

And then the sun came out.

Though it did rain again after it got dark, as it is raining now.

I went into my basement, and there is water seeping in from a new area that I cannot capture it. It is coming up from below the half wall that separates the full basement area from the crawl space. And there was water in the barrel that has the sump pump. There was none there on Monday after that rain, but today was a different soggy story down there. Not sure what to do, but keep a watchful eye on the situation the next rainstorms.

It will be interesting to see what tomorrow brings for weather and how the creek and town looks.

It certainly seems that some of the mitigation work has made a difference. And the dredging of the creek really helped as the water rose, but didn’t get high enough to get out of its banks most places. If the dredging hadn’t been done, I think this would have been a different story to tell tonight.

And here it is past my time to get to sleep and I haven’t done any links or written to my coach. But fading fast, so will call it a night.