The Great Flood

This morning I woke up to see the aftereffects of Hurricane Dennis in my backyard.

I don't live on the Gulf Coast, mind you. But metro Atlanta definitely experienced a little of nature's wrath last night.

Where normally there is pinestraw and shade-loving shrubbery on my property, there was instead encroaching lake. Where we had pulled the canoe up onto high ground was no longer high ground; instead, the canoe was partially submerged a good SIX FEET out from the land. Oldest ds had to wade out into the muck to pull it up onto the NEW high ground. He groused and complained... until he realized that our sodden backyard was right next to our neighbor's submerged backyard, where the swingset and trampoline were perfectly submerged, perfectly, into a water wonderland. Sliding into the water! Yeah! Jumping onto the trampoline AND splashing your brother, all at once! Sweet! All his boyhood pirate fantasies could be played out IN REAL WATER. Ahoy.

DH was less thrilled with the flooding. To tell the truth, even I was a little concerned, as it seemed that it might continue raining and the waters might creep up into the newly finished basement. Ugh. Fortunately, everything the developer told us last year was NOT a lie, as we had begun to suspect... they really did re-engineer the lake behind our house so that a giant spillway would drain off massive quantities of rainwater. And it worked. A couple of hours after the storm quit, the floodwaters had receded. We still have big portions of backyard under water, but the water is considerably farther away from the basement doors than it was this morning.

And as for the boys and dd? They had a grand time playing in the lake waters, until middle ds DISCOVERED A LEECH ON HIS FOOT. That'll kill the high, believe me. And now I can add "Experienced at leech removal and disposal" to my parenting resume. My salary demands just got a LOT higher.